A Day With a Woman. Or Better Yet, A Lot of Women.

I was one of those on the fence about Day Without a Woman, intended to propel the momentum of the Women's Marches and their stupendous numbers. Yes, it was undoubtedly a show of solidarity to call attention to systematic inequality by conspicuous absence than by tacit presence. Yet the whiff of class divisions or "privilege" is inescapable, perhaps best articulated by Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum in her beautiful bluntness that, given women are half the labor force, "the idea that women should take a day off en masse to make a political point is both self-defeating and vaguely insulting. It’s meant to highlight how crucial we are, but its very premise also suggest the opposite: Women are expendable."

Now let's do a complete pivot: Say you ask women to take a day off for their own professional development and support their own leadership aspirations. Say that they they have a right to ask their boss to support them. Some leap right in. For others—and in my anecdotal experience, these are usually the high achievers, the workhorses, the people who hold things together—the righteous indignation so easy to summon up in the name of solidarity becomes bashful hesitation. Asking for one's fair share verges on a selfish act.

No, there's a big project. Yes, I have a track record of finishing my projects on time/under budget/high revenue. Still, it might look bad.*

All these entrepreneurs and leaders in one place: They wouldn't want to talk to me. I did just get promoted, but I really don't deserve it.**

There are talks of cut-backs. Yes, I'm ranked as a top performer. Work's not stable right now.***

Let's introduce another angle, and expand the pool to women and men. Talk about advancing women in leadership positions in media, and they lean in, rah-rah. Yet, after decades of cheers, women's share of bylines, anchor seats, corner offices, onscreen characters are at best a mixed bag. So how about a day with women, to discuss all this in an environment of trust?

But this is called a women's leadership conference. You want men?

Women's leadership in media isn't a women's issue. It's a personal issue. It's a personnel issue. It's a social issue. It's a cultural issue.

It isn't, by the way, a pipeline issue, and never has been for years. And it isn't necessarily a recruiting issue either. it is however about understanding who continues to perpetuate the standards of who "belongs" in the upper echelons, and why all the "diversity" efforts fail if ascension always comes down to the same metrics: what school you went to, who personally vouches for you, that "hunger" you show when you forsake family for work, your golf handicap at that course that your bosses belong to. (By the way, media may be notoriously clubby, but that failure of seeing beyond cultural bias happens in algorithm-loving places like Facebook.)

Twenty years ago, the idea behind Exceptional Women in Publishing (EWIP), a 501(c)3 nonprofit, was to promote the leadership aspirations of women across all fields of magazine publishing (from advertising to editorial, from operations to finance). The mission later broadened to all publishing fields. Its signature feature is a daylong conference (coming up March 30 at UC Berkeley) that features an all-female speaking roster—long before it became a thing to boycott all-male media panels.

But it is not by any means a female-only conference. EWIP opens doors to women and men alike. This inclusiveness was important to me when I joined the board, and later became the board president.

I've never believed in preaching to the choir. Maybe it's because as a Chinese-American woman working in media, I've always been the minority among minorities in the positions I've chosen, such as going the features and entertainment path in newspapers or becoming a global editor and later content strategist in tech companies like Yahoo! and Bing News. Maybe because study after study shows a Chinese female name invariably comes dead last in consideration for faculty mentoring/job interviews when all things are, literally, equal.

Maybe because I'm just tired of having to explain things twice. If there's a problem or a perception of a problem, I'd rather discuss it openly with all the players involved, in an environment of trust, and serve up some bottles of wine to make it all go down. (And I don't even drink. Yes, I'm that kind of self-sacrificing leader.)

An amazing cadre of women, and men, are investing to gather together for one Thursday, March 30, to tackle topics both personal and business, both cultural and professional, both skills and strategies.

And you're welcome too to spend A Day With Women, namely

•  40+ speakers with deep industry expertise in content, product, marketing, social, video and the future of media
• one of the most powerful woman/person in media, Janice Min, our 2017 Exceptional Woman 2017 awardee who built the largest entertainment site in America today, outstripping Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stones
• partners from AAJA, JAWS, SJN, SPJ, WNBA
• that "horse girl" who designs VR, Live and 360 at @Facebook
• the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's SF Regional Attorney who'll surprise you with what workplace harassment is and isn't
• @Laurie McLean, the dynamic founding partner of Fuse Literary Panel and co-organizer of the eminently successful San Francisco Writers Conference, who has put together an outstanding panel including @Aya de Leon, @Vanessa Hua, @Kerry Lonsdale, @Brooke Warner, @ to talk about the titanic shifts in book publishing (while we serve wine. Because I'm that kind of leader).
• those who know we're returning to a tide of media and political re-engagement, and now's the time to take that momentum and turn around industries hemorrhaging due to short-sighted investments by restoring infrastructural investments and confidence in our audiences.

I could go on... but I'll save it for that lovely Clark Kerr conference center at UC Berkeley (with parking).

*Funny how people who's all hat and no saddle feel entitled to take up a round of golf with the boss or jaunt off to "fact-finding" missions without a qualm

**Your merit got you promoted. Then again, there are terrible bosses. Does it make you feel better that we're all undeserving? So step up and learn from the best.

***Work's never stable. Not in media. Not these days. The dreams of being the curmudgeonly columnist clanking typewriter keys belongs to cable night-time reruns.