Getting It Down On Paper

The following is a jumble of thoughts that are not fully formed into a singular idea, but it is important to me to capture them in a state of flux and to share them to aid in the formation of a greater idea.
 
Gathered around a computer on Monday night with the women of my book club I realized there needs to be a shift. Sitting in a pew at Sixth & I Synagogue last night I realized that I could help source, not just support a new idea. Perhaps the catalysts seem disparate, but these two statements are now steeping in my brain:

-Only women can manage to be 50 percent of the world's population and still be a special interest group.

-Giving can be an intrinsic part of a for-profit business model.

The first was remarked by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of The Dressmaker of Khair Khana a book about an extraordinary woman who created a business in Afghanistan that employed dozens of women during the Taliban rule of the past decades. In discussing her work with her directly surrounded by a group of women I have known for more than a decade I was struck that we could be doing more here and abroad.

Why is it that women have allowed societal pressures to fit in, succeed and advance compromise how we treat each other. Why are we unable to support each other at work, at home, at large without first judging, competitively measuring and compromising our own ethos. For all the examples of women empowerment and support of women's initiatives we may read or even experience, we still limit our own capacity for fundamentally altering society by perpetuating the negative and limiting constructs of the past. We judge ourselves, each other and then blame society.

The second idea came from Blake Mycoskie speaking about his new book Start Something That Matters. The idea that he frames his work with TOMS not as a shoe company, but rather around the one for one idea came into focus for me as he was speaking. For-profit companies can perpetuate societal change, be the subject of cause marketing, and still meet their stakeholder obligations.

From where I sit on a daily basis, I see people view the world in starkly different ways. Those that believe you can connect purpose and profit and those that believe connecting those ideas compromises the profit.

I believe we have an obligation to change business constructs and I believe women can help drive this change from within.