I’m In It… To Change The Game

I was recently asked why I do the job that I do.

And the answer is simple… I’m here to change the game. I’m in it to inspire and empower women to rise because I know that by empowering women, we will change the world.

Purpose

Having worked in tech for ten years, I was acutely aware that women and our accomplishments were pretty hidden among the stories of success. It wasn’t that we were not achieving, it was just that our stories weren’t being told. And that affected how men saw us in the industry, it affected how we got hired and, most importantly, it affected how we attract other women into the industry. In short, I knew that by making women more visible, we would change the industry for the better.

So I wrote a book — Female Innovators at Work: Women on Top of Tech — to tell the untold stories of 20 incredibly inspiring female founders and innovators in tech. Each chapter contains a different woman talking about her journey — from refugee to migrant to child escaping Nazi Germany to Marine left for dead… and how they forged their path in tech to become President of SpaceX, prolific inventor, online learning founder who sold her business for $1.5 BILLION to serial entrepreneur who sold her first business to Apple and second to Google… and so on.

I also co-founded F = to make women more visible. I knew that if we could inspire and empower more women to rise, we would change the game and felt that telling women’s stories and creating empowering slogan tops were the answer. With a committed vision of making women more visible, we could show the world what we were capable of when it was too busy reading stories about men, and that in doing so that we would inspire and empower the next generation. We knew that these two things that we were really familiar with— fashion (my sister spent her career in fashion) and storytelling (I am an author)— could permeate society both quickly and effectively if done right. And for the women and girls we couldn’t reach… we supported charities that could (proceeds from our entire GIRL POWER range goes to Worldreader).

Why Our Stories Matter

We were the first to put these stories out there with women from such different fields and what started as a side project to help women become more visible at work soon become a mission; a purpose that still drives me every single day.

Because I have seen first-hand how telling these stories of success — we have now published well over 200 interviews with kickass women on our site from (top to bottom below) Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade Dany Cotton entrepreneur Lauren Napier, England and Arsenal Footballer Rachel Yankey Olympic Gold Medalist Hockey Player Helen Richardson-Walsh, Presenter, Photographer and Founder and CEO of The Conversation and Girlgaze Amanda de Cadenet and Social Entrepreneur Yael Braun Cohen — empowers our peers and creates a legacy for the next generation to learn and rise from.

But there is still more work to be done. 

“The single story creates stereotype and the problem with stereotype is not that they are untrue but that they are incomplete, they make one story become the only story.” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Whilst we publish as many interviews as we can with incredible women, we found that some stories are still not being passed on to our children and told in schools (the fact that black history is restricted to one month is absolute madness to us). And we know that some girls can’t easily access books that have female leads who look like them so that is why we recently launched Our Stories Matter. A t-shirt we designed to be sold alongside a book about incredible women in history. Because we don’t want to just empower women — we want to create change for their children too.

So we ask customers to wear the Our Stories Matter t-shirts to spark conversations about our own stories, and we ask that they donate the book about diverse women in history to a local school or library to ensure we get these wonderful stories into as many children’s hands as possible.

Because our stories really do matter. They always have. 

The fact is storytelling has existed since the dawn of humankind. It is the basis of all that we know and all that we are. We arrange our thoughts and feelings into narratives that we can process. And we look for purpose based on a sequence of stringed words with a clear, defined beginning, middle and an end. But the last few years have taught us that we can no longer rely on others, including traditional press, to tell our whole stories. Most of the time when do get covered in the press, it is with the “victim” lens after our stories of sexual assault or sexism have surfaced. But what about all the heroines our children deserve to see and look up to; whose stories deserve to be told? Where are our success stories? Our stories of perseverance, innovation and overcoming struggle to reach new heights?

As women, we carry the weight of our stories inside of us but it is now up to us to share them. And by telling our authentic stories, we become the storytellers and empower generations of women who will follow after us. And that’s what matters. Telling these stories and ensuring they reach as many people as possible.

So that’s why I do the job that I do. This is why I am in it. I want to change how women are perceived and how they perceive themselves. I want to inspire and empower them to tell their stories because I know that in doing so, we will change the game.

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.” — Hopi American Indian proverb.

So now I have told you why I do what I do. What about you? What are you in it for? Feel free to comment below and let’s learn more about each other and our missions. #InItTogether