State of 2021: Building Resilience Together
Dear Women in Voice Community,
It’s officially 2021 and here at Women in Voice we’re working hard on many fronts to get our bearings. We hope this message finds you safe and sound despite these trying times.
Mentorship! Let’s start with some great news! Our third Mentor Matchup Program is underway and we have over 300 people signed up! A record! We love connecting people from all around the world and matching mentors and mentees explicitly through this beloved program.
501c3 Nonprofit Status Update: Thanks to Christie and Dentons: As we work to solidify the foundation of WiV and grow as an organization, we are proud to announce that our USA 501(c)(3) status is pending. Our forms have been submitted and we are extremely grateful to our champions at Dentons, especially Shareholder Christie Tillapaugh. Thank you for your support!
Career Directions: As we consider our career center directions, be sure to check out our Voice Career Development & Salary Survey Results written by Raven Jiang with the support of the Content Team. At WiV, we look forward to expanding our career support of folks across their careers. We care much about careers and retention of diversity in our field and tech in general. It was startling to see many people lose their jobs last year, which hurt women disproportionately hard compared to their male counterparts. It’s also important to note that joblessness hit women of color hardest during this time, exacerbating existing inequities. Our team is constructing directions about how we can support job hunters and careers overall.
COVID-19 continues to take the lives of many we love. While the pandemic and lockdown started in 2019, we acknowledge that how it affects our daily lives, our careers, and those of our loved ones continues on. We are so grateful to have this community as a way to continue to build resilience all across this exceptional time.
High Highs and Low Lows: A discussion of women of color, loss of jobs, and the tech sector would not be complete without mentioning Dr. Timnit Gebru’s firing from Google, as covered by the New York Times, The Washington Post, and WIRED. This incident is a very public example of the need for more inclusion and retention of women of color in our field and to openly discuss gender and race discrimination. To that end, we are delighted to see the election into office of Vice President Kamala Harris the first Black woman and the first Indian-American to hold the office of the vice president. Regardless of individual political beliefs, seeing women rise to the second-highest position in the USA is wonderful for representation of gender equality everywhere. While we see some steps back in society, we hope that female leadership also provides greater representation and legislation to support gender and racial diversity.
Black History Month: As we power through the month of February, it would be remiss to not highlight that this month is observed as Black History Month in the United States, Canada, the UK and the Netherlands. On the heels of what was a very tumultuous year in 2020 with the fight for black human rights to be observed and respected with international Black Lives Matter (BLM) activities, we extend our solidarity with the Black community in their continued fight for hope, peace, and change. Looking into 2021 and beyond: diversity, equity and inclusion is the top priority for Women in Voice from the leadership team, to our partners, and all of our future sponsors. We will continue working toward creating spaces, programming, and environments for marginalized voices and to empower Black women and people who identify as minority genders in Voice Tech. We invite you to learn even more about Black History Month through these and other organizations: (CNN: “Why I’m asking for more from this Black History Month” Jones and Cole, 2021); (Black History Month Website see events); (National Archives Events see events)
We continue our global stance against white supremacy in all of its forms, see our US State Capitol and White Supremacy Statement. We’re based globally, but with our Founder and start in the USA, it’s important we continue to renounce white supremacy everywhere.
Chapter Growth and Goals: We are delighted to now proudly say we have 20 chapters in 15 countries on 5 continents here at WiV. In 2020, we more than doubled our chapter count and hope to continue vibrant expansion this year! Our Director of Chapters, Romina Pankoke is looking to connect with future ambassadors around the world who want to set up chapters near them. Reach out with ideas and connections: romina.pankoke@womeninvoice.org.
Save the Date! WiV Women’s Month Round Table: Building Resilience Together: March 2nd, 2021: For Women’s Month, we’ll be hosting a virtual roundtable event on March 2nd and invite you to join us, free tickets to the event here.
Sign Up for Work Groups at WiV: WiV Global Team is growing and looking for more people to help produce content and contribute to new channels, including Medium and YouTube. Come join us!
- Want to contribute an article to Women in Voice Medium?
- Email editorial@womeninvoice.org
Sincerely,
Joan, Jennie, Nieves, Katy, Romina, Gwen, and Lezlie-Ann of WiV Global
