Building an anti-racist business & community: a #BlackLivesMatter statement from the Powerbitches Leadership Council

The Powerbitches community is outraged and in deep mourning over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and the countless other Black lives that have been stolen because of state violence and police brutality. We say their names out loud, we honor their lives, and we raise our voices against their unjust deaths. 

At this pivotal moment in history, we stand with Black Lives Matter. We stand with thousands of protesters across the United States who are speaking out against white supremacy and systemic racism. We stand with our Black friends, family members, peers, community leaders, and fellow humans as we protest together to guarantee they are able to live, create, love, parent, build, dissent, and walk through the word without fear of hate and violence. 

This moment is an opportunity to call for deeper, more profound action on racial justice for all of us, but especially for White people and non-Black people of color.

The inexcusable violence that is currently being protested is built on the back of slavery and colonialism. But it’s also built on countless more subtle violences, inequities, and power dynamics.

It’s built into our friendships and families, the intimate networks that go on to shape who we work with, collaborate with, and trust. It’s built in our media and popular culture, whose stories shape who we perceive as heroes and villains, who gets to occupy the center of the narrative, and who sits on the sidelines. It’s built into the everyday microaggressions, slights, insults, and indignities that bolster and empower the “Amy Coopers” of, as Alicia Sanchez Gill and Shante Bacon put it on Twitter, our non-profits, corporate offices, financial institutions, universities, medical facilities, government offices, board rooms, "team" meetings, mommy groups, and classrooms. 

It’s in the makeup of your leadership team, the first hire you make at your start-up, and how much you pay them. It’s about who has access to grant and investment funding, and who feels comfortable in a room.

We must march if we can. We must make donations if we are able.

And for those of us who lead or are creating businesses, nonprofit organizations, and movements, we must look as well to our own backyards: at how we (unwittingly or otherwise) perpetuate these systems, and what we can do to dismantle them.

Powerbitches has strived to build diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism into our programming from our inception, in policies and commitments we haven’t shared explicitly until now, but which have nonetheless shaped the way we operate. Among these:

•  Share the voices of womxn of color founders, creators, and thought-leaders. 

  • In 2019, we set a target that a minimum of 50% of our Salon speakers would be women of color, and surpassed it. Five out of eight of our Salon speakers last year were women of color, and three out of eight were Black womxn.

• Pro-actively host conversations about diversity and inclusion, that get to the root of why people of color are too often marginalized even in progressive organizations.

  • We were grateful to partner with Michelle Wonsley-Ford on her workshop “Your Business Will Be Intersectional or It Will Be Bullshit” last October

  • This month, Powerbitches Leadership Council member, power coach, and trust facilitator Korin Mills led us in a members-only conversation about friendships between white women and people of color.

• Prioritize diversity in leadership. When we created our first Leadership Council last year, diversity was a key factor of consideration. The resulting leadership group was 50% womxn of color and 50% LGBTQ womxn.

We are proud that the rooms at our public events are diverse (and this is a function of deliberate outreach and organizing – as any organizer knows, no room fills itself by accident). But we also know that our membership is disproportionately white. We know that as an organization founded by a white woman (that would be me, Rachel), we must be vigilant against creating spaces that center whiteness as a default identity or experience.

As a Leadership Council, we are using this moment to reflect on how we can better serve the people of color in both our membership and our broader community, and on how we can build a community that reflects the true diversity of womxn working on the issues we care about. We commit to take action to build an organization that resists and dismantles white supremacy at every level.

To that end, we commit to:

• Continue to actively experiment with new ways of sharing work and power in organizations, as we transition our business model and leadership structure ahead of our reopening later in 2020. Our leadership team is already diverse: we want that to be reflected in who you see facilitating our events, who you hear from in our emails, and who sets the agenda for the conversations that we program. (See Tuesday Ryan-Hart’s “Shared Work” model, Dori Tunstall on #respectfuldesign, Samantha Slade’s book Going Horizontal, CV Harquail’s work on feminist business models, and the Interaction Institute for Social Change for guidance on principles you can bring to your own organization.)

• Create self-organizing affinity groups for our womxn of color and LGBTQ members to connect with and support each other.

• Affirm our existing commitment that a minimum of 50% of our speakers will be womxn of color, formalize an additional commitment that one third of our speakers will be Black womxn, and commit to programming at least one trans speaker in the first 6 months after our live events reopen.

• Conduct an internal review with our POC members and community on how Powerbitches is currently practicing what we say to be our values, and how we can do better. 

• Run programming covering anti-racism, diversity, and/or equity and inclusion work at minimum once a quarter, including an Equity Audit to help our community evaluate the current status and areas for growth within their own businesses, organizations, and communities

This work isn’t new. It has been happening for generations, led by Black movement leaders and other thinkers and activists of color. Nor is it easy: if it were, systemic racism would not be so intractable.

But if we want to build organizations, communities, and a society that is truly equitable and inclusive, it is work we must all be committed to.

We hope you will join us. Write back, and share with us what you're doing to integrate anti-racist principles into your organization, and what you'd like to see us doing at Powerbitches.

Yours in solidarity, now and always,

Rachel Hills, Vandana Arcot, Jillian Foster, Sam Grone, Meenakshi Menon, Korin Mills, and Lex Schroeder
Powerbitches Leadership Council

5 reasons to join Powerbitches today

Like what we do but on the fence on becoming a member? Here are 5 reasons you should make sure you get your application in by Friday January 31.

1. Powerbitches gives you the support you need to make your biggest ideas a reality. Our in-person and virtual Brains Trusts provide monthly peer coaching where you can connect with your fellow members and get smart, confidential feedback on challenges you’re facing and projects you’re developing.

2. We give you a seat at the table with trailblazers who are shaping public dialogue and upending outdated power dynamics. Our monthly Salons provide intimate conversation and interaction with womxn founders, creators, and changemakers you’d normally only be able to access from the distance of a stage - all over a three-course, dietary-restriction-sensitive catered dinner. Last year’s speakers included Naj Austin (Ethel’s Club), Jennifer Wright (Harpers’ Bazaar), and Shanthony Exum (aka feminist hiphop star Miss Eaves) - and this year we’ve got Erin Vilardi (Vote Run Lead), Attia Taylor (Womanly Magazine), and a whole lot more lined up.

3. Grow your professional community in a deep and lasting way. Yeah, we know - everyone is selling community these days. But we pride ourselves on actually delivering on it. Our monthly Brains Trusts mean our members get to know each other’s work and passions intimately. Our interactive Salons create space for substantive conversation and relationships that go beyond the limits of the event itself. Our deliberately intimate scope means you’re never just sitting in a room with strangers listening to someone talk. Read more about our philosophy of community here.

4. Powerbitches is exclusively for women like you: women who are ambitious, dreaming big, and on a mission to change the way the world works. We’re not a generic “women in business” or “women’s networking” group. We’re clear about who we’re here to serve: and that's women who are working to change culture, business, politics, and society for the better. This means that when you become a member of our community, you enter a community of truly like minds - women who are striving to achieve the same things you are, even if they’re doing it in a different way.

5. You only have four more days to apply before we close new memberships. As we wrote last week, we know that our prices are low for the high-touch community and service we offer, and next month our Leadership Council will be coming together to think through what a more appropriate and sustainable pricing model looks like. When we reopen in a few months' time, prices will be higher. But before we temporarily close memberships, we want to give the people who have been part of our events and conversations over the last two years a chance to go all in. 

Our current membership prices are available to all who apply before this Friday January 31, so if you like what we do and have been thinking about joining us, now’s the time to become a member.

Your dreams are so much bigger than a magazine spread

In the Powerbitches online community, we sometimes partake in what we call “Brag Threads”: opportunities to collectively and unabashedly celebrate our accomplishments over the last week or month. But in December, we tried something a little grander in scope. A brag thread celebrating not just what we’d achieved over the last month, but over the entire decade.

Writing down everything they’d done over the past decade felt powerful, our members reported. Much more fun and affirming that thinking about 2019 only.

Which made sense to me. A year can often feel underwhelming, as we compare our realities against the sky high goals we set for ourselves each January. But a decade, for me, always feels monumental. 

On Sunday January 26, we’ll be coming together in Brooklyn to do something a lot of people will be doing in this first month of a new decade: looking to the future and setting goals. (RSVP here.)

But our Visioning Workshop will include a couple of important twists.

1. Like our December brag thread, you’ll be thinking long term: setting a vision for the 2020s as a decade, rather than 2020 as a single year. We believe that a decade-long focus will free us up to imagine more boldly and hone in on what’s really important to us, while reducing the pressure to get everything you dream of done by December 31 2020.

2. Instead of creating a vision board, you’ll be producing a vision statement. It’s not that we don’t like pretty pictures, it’s that we don’t trust ourselves to be able to come to the room with images that are as bold, exciting, and original as your dreams are. When we articulate our dreams through the visual language of magazines and advertising, we restrict what we’re able to vision to the dreams that advertisers have already laid out for us: pictures of Oprah, palm trees, and red carpets. We believe that vision boards have value, but that their value is greatest when you’re crystal clear on what you desire and let those desires shape the images you choose.

Co-facilitated by Powerbitches founder and feminist author Rachel Hills, and PB member and Passion By Kait founder Kait Scalisi, this will be a space to reflect on questions such as: 

• What do you want to create over the next 10 years? 

• Where do you want to make impact? 

• What shape would you like the projects you're working on now to look like in a decade? 

• What's important to you, and how will you nourish it? 

At the end of the afternoon, you'll walk away with a written Vision Story for your next 10 years, and a series of achievable goals you can set for 2020 to start making your vision a reality.

Sound like something you want to be part of? RSVP here. Tickets are free for Powerbitches members, and $40 for non-members. Food and refreshments provided.

This event is limited to 10 participants, so get in quick to secure your spot.

The Powerbitches Interview: Cynthia Medina Carson

Cynthia Medina Carson, founder and CEO of WAGER

Powerbitches first met Cynthia Medina Carson, our November Salon speaker and the founder and CEO of WAGER, at our Feminist Entrepreneurs roundtable in May. We were immediately impressed by her business savvy, and excited by what WAGER represented as part of a growing group of businesses building interventions to help close the gender pay gap.

A former HR consultant, Cynthia created WAGER after one too many times sitting across the table from a would-be employee who had no idea what they were worth. A believer in the power of transparency, she wanted to give people the data they needed to advocate for a salary that reflected their skills and experiences - and level the playing field for women and people of color in the process.

Join Cynthia and Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills in Brooklyn on November 7th for an intimate and interactive dinner party discussing her experiences building a business, the role of transparency in closing the gender pay gap, and how we can advocate for ourselves financially as business owners and freelancers.  Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

Powerbitches: Tell us the story of how you came to create WAGER.

Cynthia Medina Carson: I’ve always cared about the question, “Is society working well for the individual?” whether in the private or public sector. At 12 years old, I raised my hand during a school event and announced, “I want to work in government.” I served in the Peace Corps teaching women how to start micro-businesses and continued to work in public policy. When I had children and had to rethink the amount of international travel I did, I asked myself, “How can I be an executive with flexibility and work with people?” So I started working for startups in San Francisco in recruiting, and from there went to work with Nielson as a technical recruiter.

Sitting across the table from people in a position where I could coach them  to advocate for themselves, I felt like I could literally see all the things we know cause the gender pay gap: not abstractly, but actually. I met people who couldn’t assert themselves, people who didn’t have the information they needed such as the market rate for a role, people who when asked their salary requirements just said, “Whatever you want to pay.”  It felt wrong. I wanted to have an intelligent conversation with the person across from me, but my job was to hide the salary information for the role. In February 2018, I came home frustrated and said to my husband, “I wish we could reveal everyone’s salaries for 24 hours and see what all the fuss is about.”

In June of that year I sent an email to my network asking, who wanted to talk about their salaries? The response I received was overwhelming and I ended up doing a couple of hundred pairings over six months, and launched WAGER in January 2019. I’ve always been good at advocating for others, but one thing I’ve learned in the process of launching WAGER is the importance of trusting and advocating for myself. Before I launched, I remember wondering, “do I have enough data yet to start this business?” I had 200 matches at that point. A friend laughed and told me a guy would have been going out and pitching investors when he had 10.

“I’ve always been good at advocating for others, but one thing I’ve learned in the process of launching WAGER is the importance of trusting and advocating for myself.” - Cynthia Medina Carson

PB: How does WAGER work? How do you match people for conversations? 

CMC: Because I’m a former recruiter, I’m pretty good at reading between the lines what people actually do versus what they say they do. Some people will look at a profile with similar titles and think they’re a great match for a conversation, but I can tell it would be horrible. I see people’s personalities in their resumes or their bios and can get a sense of where they are going in life. We then take the two complementary profiles and set them up for a transparent salary conversation. It’s highly analog and time consuming, but it’s life changing for a person who doesn’t know their worth. This analog phase has been hard but rich with data. It’s informed our products and our approach to expansion. We know that as a society, we assign a lot of our worth to the digits on a paycheck. Instead of using it as a data point, it becomes who we are. Matching two professionals to share insight empowers them to detach themselves from that number and go out and find the one that’s a better fit. This is particularly critical for those who’ve been out of the workforce or have a non-traditional background. 

We are working on creating a technical solution using the data we’ve collected from the pairs we’ve matched to inform the AI that will eventually do the matching. It’s a very sensitive topic, so you still need the human touch confirming the matches are appropriate for the situation, provide excellent customer service to clients and spread the word as to why salary transparency is so important. Over time, we can use feedback to teach machines to use/follow algorithms that are guided by data. Machine learning algorithms use training sets of real-world data to infer models that are more accurate and sophisticated than humans could develop on their own. 

PB: What role does WAGER’s work play in closing the gender pay gap?

CMC: We try to be pretty gender, age, and experience neutral in the way we talk about what we do. Our work is for everyone who wants to engage with it. That said, the people who are accessing our products are largely women in their 30s and 40s who have reached director level and above. They realize they’re earning less than their male peers, and say, “Wait a minute, I’m mad now.” I’m not disappointed with where I’m at in life, but I’m getting angry at watching people pass me by. 

Talking about salary has always been considered taboo. However, the reality is that the secrecy surrounding salaries typically benefits the organization more than the employees. It benefits those who negotiate more aggressively or know how to navigate the intricacies of an industry or culture. It also benefits those with access to information. I was the first in my family to go to college. I had no sense of how to navigate corporate culture, let alone advocate for raises. When pay is transparent, organizations must be able to justify each employee’s salary and raises. “Just because” isn’t an answer. 

Cynthia Medina Carson at Powerbitches’ May 2019 roundtable, Feminist Entrepreneurs Unite

PB: That makes sense, since we know the gender pay gap actually gets bigger the more senior you are in an organization.

CMC: It’s also a period when there’s so much change happening in women’s lives. They’re getting married, having babies, getting divorced. They’re becoming breadwinners for their families, and they want to take the leap and know their worth in the market.

The WAGER conversations are really just one step of what I’m truly trying to achieve. Individual transparency is one thing, but you also need transparency on a systemic level. We’re working with companies’ Employee Resource Groups and teaching them how to talk about money in a very collaborative way. We’re teaching employees how to start conversations about money, negotiate  raises, and advocate for themselves in a professional setting. We’re inviting management into the conversation so they can hear their employees’ concerns and the impact that a lack of transparency is having on their business. 

We are in the early stages of creating a salary depot where people will share their crowdsourced salaries into one searchable database. I’ve had conversations with members of the Tech Workers Coalition, which organizes workers in the tech industry, to help me build a Minimum Viable Product and get others onboard. 

PB: I’m really glad to hear you’re taking that approach, because the gender pay gap isn’t just a matter of women not asking. It’s about really deeply embedded structural inequalities. I wonder though, what’s the motivation for employers in being more open about pay? 

CMC: Employees increasingly want transparency when it comes to pay. People are moving between jobs a lot more, and for employers there’s the question of how do you get people to stay? Employees need to know you care about their well-being. Millennials get a bad rap for their workplace demands, but I commend their determination of making the workplace a give and take relationship. You have to make an investment in keeping employees, and salary transparency is one way to do that.

Companies are fearful of transparency but it makes sense for them to dive right in. They don’t have to follow a radical format such as some progressive companies who post the salaries of their employees online. Most companies practice partial transparency such as posting salary ranges on job descriptions or creating pay bands and levels for employees. These bands can help workers understand how they fit into a company and the potential growth within the role.

The reality is, if we wanted to end the pay gap now, we could. If everyone committed to it, it would happen. 

PB: The isn’t the first business you’ve built. Before you started WAGER, you ran your own recruitment consultancy, Medina Talent. What did you learn from that experience that you brought to WAGER? 

I learned that the way I viewed the world had value. That having a high Emotional Quotient can be the anchor for a company, and as a woman we are told that these skills are not market worthy. Stepping out on your own really feels like you’re stepping off a ledge. So having customers and people compensate me to analyze their work and grow their talent was a natural step to moving into the advocacy we’re practicing with WAGER. I learned that I had power. 

As a Latina, I grew up surrounded by a lot of strong women (I have over 29 aunts and uncles) and speaking frankly, loudly, and with love, was a key skill. However this same frankness could be intimidating to people who were used to using four sentences to say something I could say with three words. I often felt like an outsider in groups, yet would find people asked me for advice one on one. At Medina Talent, where I focused on organization and people development, companies paid  me to speak truth to them, and that was very empowering. 

“There are a lot of formulas in the world about how business should be executed, and most of them are based on the approach and pace of white male entrepreneurs. I think it’s important to start to build companies through a different lens.” - Cynthia Medina Carson

There are a lot of formulas in the world about how business should be executed, and most of them are based on the approach and pace of white male entrepreneurs. I think it’s important to start to build companies through a different lens. We’ve got to be comfortable knowing that your formula for success might not be the same formula as VC’s. It might be something different, and you’ve got to be okay with that.

PB: You’re running an upcoming digital workshop series for freelancers. How do the challenges for freelancers and employees differ when it comes to pay and rates information? 

CMC: A 2017 report by Upwork predicted that by 2027, the majority of the US workforce will be freelancing in some capacity. However, there’s very little infrastructure for freelancers to understand their worth. It’s very important that we address the needs of freelancers in terms of information. If women and people of color are disadvantaged when it comes to negotiating pay in a traditional workplace, they are going to be a fish out of water in a freelance setting. The lack of information is a whole different universe.

We created this webinar series for individuals who wanted to engage with WAGER but did not know if their non-salaried position made them a good fit for our services. We’re partnering with a freelance agency from Raleigh, North Carolina, who bring another perspective of the needs and struggles of Freelancers. Over these three webinars we will be disseminating a wide range of information regarding setting and negotiating rates, as well as  sharing a custom created rate calculator which will help freelancers calculate their desired hourly rate by working their way backwards from what they want to be earning in a week or a month, and transforming that to an hourly rate.

PB: What about challenges in pricing your work in a way that compensates yourself and the people who work for you fairly when you’re running your own company?

CMC: Know that if you are running a business and people are willing to pay for your services, that is what you need to focus on. I had to take a step back and think, “What would I pay a Harvard educated woman, who’s been a recruiter and executive, to teach me how to make 50k more in salary?” You have to say, I am putting a product into the world that I want to get paid for. Often, we’re waiting for people to say, “You’re worth X,” and once they do that you will charge that. That will never happen. When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t have anyone else who can do that for you. You have to be your own advocate. 

Right now I’m focused on creating a pipeline, knowing what I need to create every month to get the balance sheet where it needs to be. I know my worth and I know what WAGER is worth to a client.   As a business which helps others to advocate for themselves, It's important to charge a fair fee for our services - I don’t want to be the person who gave everything away and was left with nothing for myself. If anyone complains about paying for professional services, they’re not the client for your business. 

Cynthia Medina Carson will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our next Salon, on November 7th in Brooklyn. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

Join the Powerbitches Leadership Council

2019 has been a year of incredible growth for Powerbitches. Our community has grown fivefold, we’ve seeded our first press and partnerships, and we’ve produced a non-stop stream of sold out events on a shoestring budget (17 so far in 2019, and 5 more to come before the end of the year).

There’s so much more we want to build and create: we have more ideas for speakers, services, and workshops than we have weeks to schedule them in. And we know that our ability to create it means letting in our community to help: whether that means hiring a paid events manager, bringing more people into the intellectual and strategic leadership of the organization, or expanding our team of facilitators.

That’s why we’re creating our first Powerbitches Leadership Council, bringing together a diverse group of womxn with expertise in business development, movement building, diversity and inclusion, marketing, legals, and operations to help set our priorities over the next 12 months and help us grow into a sustainable organization.

As a member of our Leadership Council, you will form part of Powerbitches’ internal strategic brains trust, co-leading the way as we take steps to figure out what being a sustainable organization and community looks like for us. You won’t be responsible for the day to day administration of events, but you will have the opportunity to help shape our 2020 programming and direction: Which speakers should we highlight at our Salons? What topics should we prioritize for group education? As a feminist organization with limited resources and time, where is our energy best invested?

You’ll also be responsible for helping to answer the more fundamental questions we face as an organization: How do we grow our reach and community? How can we fulfill our organization’s mission as a connector and thought leader in an expansive yet sustainable way? What’s a fair price for our events and services? How should the work involved in running Powerbitches be split between paid staff and volunteers? How do we make sure we live our values as an organization?

Leadership Council members commit to a term of 12 months, with an estimated time commitment of 4h/month, including a monthly 1 hour phone meeting and providing email feedback on strategic organizational initiatives. Members are also encouraged to lead strategic initiatives related to their area(s) of expertise, and/or lead Powerbitches salons, Brains Trusts, or group education events related to their area(s) of expertise.

Like many feminist organizations, Powerbitches runs on love and our will to bring work into the world that we believe is essential to making the planet a richer, more vibrant, and more equitable place. We charge for membership and events, but we do not generate a profit. Instead, our financial goal is sustainability: to generate enough revenue to fairly compensate everyone working on our projects, and to invest any “profit” into expanding our work and impact.

If you would like to join the Powerbitches Leadership Council, please email rachel@powerbitches.co with a short note introducing yourself and your interest in being part of our work by Monday October 28.

The Powerbitches Interview: Naj Austin

Ethel’s Club founder, Naj Austin.

You only need to talk to Naj Austin, our October Salon guest and the 28-year-old founder of Ethel’s Club, for about three minutes to understand why the space has found such rapid traction. Naj announced her idea for a social and wellness club centered on people of color on Instagram in January, and had 600 signups to her mailing list within 7 days. A write-up in the New York Times and high profile investments from Roxane Gay and other notable investors soon followed.

Ethel's Club found buzz because it’s a great idea whose time has more than come. But it’s taken off because of Austin’s savvy as a business woman, whose talent for building strong teams has helped create a product that speaks to the needs of a broad community. The company has merged a strong sense of purpose with a scalable business model which has impressed investors and members alike.

Ethel's Club opens in Brooklyn in November, but Powerbitches will have an opportunity to see the space - and meet Naj - at our next Salon on October 22. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

“People of color want to be in spaces and rooms that give them access, but there’s a specific kind of burden people of color walk around with when navigating white spaces.” - Naj Austin

Powerbitches: How did you come up with the idea for Ethel's Club?

Naj Austin: I spent the first five years of my career in the real estate and tech world. I worked at a furnished rental housing startup, creating beautiful spaces that people could bounce between. I was Head of Operations, and I led everything from finding the landlords, to negotiating leases, to bringing the apartments to life The company was great but unfortunately we were unable to raise enough capital to continue growing the business. After that I worked with a founder with a finance background, who wanted me to come on and lead product for a company that was going to democratise real estate. 

It was when I was working at those companies that I started thinking about the creation a of space for someone who looked like me. I was searching for a therapist of color and I couldn’t find one. Trying to find a therapist is not as easy as asking your friend who their dermatologist is -- it’s much more personal than that. I thought it would be compelling if you could meet with therapists of color inside of a beautifully-designed space. When I started thinking about how to maximize square footage, I added in concepts like a cafe space and boutique that carried POC items -- that organic thinking  is how Ethel’s Club was born.

It was always part of the vision to embed wellness into the space from the very beginning, which is why we describe Ethel’s Club as a social and wellness club. We’ve strayed away from coworking because I don’t think the world needs another coworking company. We’re offering something much bigger and engaging than desk rentals. We wanted Ethel's Club to be a community where you know everyone and actually talk to and connect with people while you’re here. If you work together too, that’s a plus. But we are not designing the club to be a place where you come to bury your head for 8 hours.

PB: When you announced Ethel's Club in January, it immediately grabbed people’s attention, from the 600 people who signed up to be notified about the space when it opens, to the New York Times and Roxane Gay. Why do you think that was?

NA: It’s funny, I was just in a meeting and we were trying to unpack this question. I think Ethel’s Club has resonated with so many people, because we are building something for a group that is so often left out of the conversation. And we are doing it with intentionality and style. We’re focusing on a marginalized group of people who rarely have the spotlight and often do not have anything created for them. We are forcibly changing that narrative, and it has excited people for that very reason. First a social club designed with me in mind -- what’s next? Our brand has the potential to cover every vertical and every industry -  the vision is to be much larger than our clubhouses.

PB: You’ve talked about the overwhelming lack of representation of people of color in other social clubs and coworking spaces in New York City. Can you tell me more about what you mean by that? What has been your experience when you’ve been inside those spaces?

NA: People of color want to be in spaces and rooms that give them access, but there’s a specific kind of burden people of color walk around with when navigating white spaces. There is a specific emotion tied to being the only one, or the “token”. It’s a deeper burnout than just working hard or working all of the time. Operating successfully in those spaces requires more of us. We’re creating a different community that will never demand that of you. 

“If you can find investors who believe in you, and who understand the product and the why behind it, they can be invaluable in terms of directing the company and helping you decide what comes next.” - Naj Austin

PB: How did the work you did before Ethel's Club help to shape what you’re doing now?

NA: With this first clubhouse, we’re creating a blueprint for what an Ethel's Club is, so that we can replicate it 100 more times. The excitement of creating the first space is figuring out what those elements are. My previous roles taught me a lot about operations, including all of the small things that consumers don’t realize are built into a product that make it delightful. Small things like creating our guest policy, designing signage and meeting our vendors and suppliers are all things that make Ethel’s Club tick. Working at startup companies before means that I have the deep experience of being the person who had to make hard decisions when it comes to operations. People get finicky about chairs, couches, and tables, but I’ve done those things fifty times over. This company still has its own complexities, but I’m way more adept at the logistical side of things than I would have been without those positions. 

PB: The process of securing investors is one that many women entrepreneurs find challenging - especially if you’re creating a business with an additional impact focus, or if you don’t come from a class background that means you’re familiar with those environments. How did you navigate that process?

NA: I wasn’t familiar with those environments, either, but I made sure to put myself in rooms where I knew people would understand the significance of what I was building. As a black woman pitching to a room of white male investors, I often found myself explaining things like systemic racism or inherent bias and less time talking about the business. So I began to meet with investors who didn’t need me to explain why a safe space was needed to empower people of color. Ultimately, venture is like high school. If enough people like your company, everyone else likes you too. It’s funny to know that and see it literally unfold in front of you. But, if you can find investors who believe in you, and who understand the product and the why behind it, they can be invaluable in terms of directing the company and helping you decide what comes next. I’m super lucky that our investors are people I text -- all of the time actually. I’ll write to them and say, “I’m thinking about this crazy idea -- what do you think?”

Naj Austin will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our next Salon, on October 22 in Brooklyn. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.

The Five Degrees of Feminist Business

by Powerbitches founder and CEO, Rachel Hills

A few months ago, Powerbitches member Jennifer Peirce said something so simple yet so profound that I’ve been thinking about it ever since. That in order for a business or organization to qualify as “feminist,” it needs use a feminist lens to define and tackle the issues it sets out to solve.

I’ve been thinking about it in particular lately because ties in so well with our events this month: our partnership with LYLAS Labs next Saturday October 12, which is all about creating feminist solutions to problems of gender inequality, and our diversity, equity, and inclusion masterclass this Thursday October 3.

Written down on the page, Jen’s remark seems obvious - of course a business that calls itself feminist should use feminism as a lens through which to understand the problems it sets out to solve. But it’s a criteria that rarely comes up in conversations about feminism and work, which tend to be more focused on women’s representation as founders, our access to funding, and the imagery and messages we use in our marketing.

It got me thinking about what I call the Five Degrees of Feminist Business, and how they connect to and build on each other. 

Think of it like a video game you can “level up,” or like Dante’s nine circles of heaven and hell.

The First Degree of Feminist Business: Is this business owned by a woman, trans, or nonbinary person?

This is the level most conversations about women and business start and end at. Is this business owned by a woman? Hurray, it’s feminist! Let’s invest in it, buy its products, and celebrate it as a symbol of empowerment. Getting more $$$ to woman-owned businesses matters whether they are overtly feminist or not, because women receive less than 3% of investment dollars (and women of color a paltry 10% of that). But it’s a low, low bar to set if we’re talking about using entrepreneurship to pursue feminist ends.

The Second Degree of Feminist Business: Does this business talk about feminism in its marketing and external comms? 

Ie, most of the feminist companies we hear about in social and legacy media. It’s nice to have people championing the cause. But feminist marketing can often seem like just that: a way to make an otherwise unremarkable product edgy and interesting. Talking about feminism is great, and one way to bring a feminist lens to any business, no matter what you’re selling. But it’s not the same thing as creating a feminist product.

The Third Degree of Feminist Business: Does this business or organization seek to challenge gender roles and expectations in some way?

This is the baseline that Powerbitches used when we put together our Feminist Entrepreneurs Roundtable in May. We’re excited by products and ideas that make life better for women and gender nonconforming people, rather than just sell to them. We’re excited by businesses and organizations that serve women that otherwise underserved, whether because of their race, sexuality, gender expression, disability status, or something else. And we love ideas that have the power to shift the way people think, feel, and act.

The Fourth Degree of Feminist Business: Does the business use a feminist lens to understand the problem it’s trying to solve?

In order to solve feminist problems, we first need to understand the root causes. That’s to say, we need to draw upon existing feminist research to understand the problem we’re trying to solve - as well as doing research of our own where there are gaps. So, to borrow from the topics we’ll be tackling at LYLAS Labs next week, if you want to solve the gender pay gap, first you need to understand the factors that contribute to women being systematically paid less than men. If you’re tackling the care burden, you need to understand the lived experiences of people with significant care responsibilities. And you need to look beyond your own experiences to consider how these challenges play out for people who don’t look like you. 

The Fifth Degree of Feminist Business: Does the business or organization operate in a manner that reflects feminist values?

Does it pay its staff and suppliers fairly? Is its leadership team equitable across gender, race, and sexuality? How does it handle internal issues of workplace harassment bullying? Are its employees given room to have a life outside the company? There have been a number of high profile businesses that tick the boxes on the first four degrees, but have which fostered toxic and exploitative work environments. Building a feminist business isn’t just about what you’re creating, but how you go about creating it.

I hope these questions have given you some food for thought. And I hope you’ll join us at LYLAS’s Women @ Work Lab on October 12 and Powerbitches’ diversity and inclusion masterclass this Thursday October 3.

Why we're running a diversity, equity, and inclusion masterclass

by Powerbitches founder and CEO, Rachel Hills

As feminist founders, creators, and changemakers, we know that our work is most powerful when it speaks to people whose identities and experience don’t necessarily match our own. 

But building companies, organizations, and movements that are truly inclusive and equitable is easier said than done. It’s not just a matter of nixing the all-white panel, asking people their pronouns, or putting pictures of same-sex couples in your marketing materials. 

It means taking an honest look at who has decision making power in your organization (even if that organization is just you for now), and whose needs you’re meeting - or not meeting - with the products, projects, and stories you’re putting out into the world. It means reckoning with your own "isms," and having the courage to deal with the biases that show up in your organization head on.

None of this sh** is easy. If it was, you’d see a mass of progressive businesses and non-profits upending structures of white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, classism, and ableism inside their companies and out. Instead, what we see time and time again are well-intentioned organizations failing to live up to their own marketing - whether in ways that are loud and public, or more quietly, in ways we might only acknowledge to ourselves.

That’s why Powerbitches has teamed up with LondonPlane Advisory’s Michelle Wonsley-Ford and meetinplace for a Masterclass on diversity, equity, and inclusion that seeks to get to the heart of these questions and how we can shift our practices and behavior to make our own organizations more inclusive and equitable.

We’ve called it Your Business Will Be Intersectional Or It Will Be Bullshit in a homage to Flavia Dzodan’s famous 2011 declaration, “my feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.” 

This Masterclass is targeted at founders of mission-driven businesses and non-profits large and small, as well as people in leadership positions at businesses and non-profits who want to learn how to create change in their own organizations.

RSVP and secure your ticket here.

And if you’ve been considering joining Powerbitches but have been waiting for the motivation, here’s a little sweetener for you: this masterclass is free for all Powerbitches members.

Whether you’re a member or not, I hope you’ll join us for this important conversation. It’s not a matter of being perfect, but we can do better - and that goes for us at Powerbitches as much as anyone.

The Powerbitches Interview: Alexis Barad-Cutler

Not Safe For Mom Group founder, Alexis Barad-Cutler.

Our September Salon guest, Alexis Barad-Cutler, is a social media genius. Her 8000-strong online community Not Safe For Mom Group (nsfmg) has taken a medium famous for highly-curated branding and careful self-presentation - Instagram - and turned it into a space for authentic storytelling and self-disclosure. Along the way, (nsfmg) has hosted conversations on everything from identity, to infertility, to anti-racism. If you want to learn how to leverage social media for deep audience engagement, you need to be watching Alexis’s work. And if you’re looking for a space to discuss the thornier side of motherhood, you need to join (nsfmg).

Powerbitches sat down with Alexis to learn more about how (nsfmg) developed its unique style of social media dialogue, how her personal and professional experiences shape the community, and the conversations that still aren’t “safe for mom group.”

Powerbitches: How did (nsfmg) come about?

Alexis Barad-Cutler: I had been writing for parenting magazines for a couple of years - anything from personal essays to sponsored posts, event coverage, listicles, research-based articles, gift guides and holiday roundups. But when I wrote about my own life, it tended to be me writing about my deepest darkest confessions as a parent. It was cathartic, a way to get over the parts of motherhood that I struggled with, and I felt like if I put them out there it was sort of therapy.

I also wrote humorous essays about dark things - in this case, an article self-examining about how I tended to hire the best-looking babysitters when using online babysitting services, because when you’re hiring people based on a profile picture on an app, that’s kind of what the technology drives you to do. It was a dark truth about myself, and it was also kind of funny. I submitted it to a popular parenting website, it was approved and published, and a couple of days later it was not there. I called the editor I was working with, and she said there had been some controversy around it. Readers said it was too sexist and it objectified women. I said, “That's interesting, I would love to see what people wrote and get into a conversation with them about it,” but that wasn’t possible because the comments had been deleted along with the article.

“I felt like that whole first year of motherhood was colored by a feeling of otherness.” - Alexis Barad-Cutler

I got so boiling mad, and coupled with the sense that everything else I was looking at online was so beautiful, it made me ashamed of the type of mother I was. At first I thought (nsfmg) was going to be a literary magazine, but it ended up evolving into something a lot more dynamic. 

Alexis facilitating a conversation at The Wing.

PB: You’ve spoken publicly about your experiences with postpartum depression. How did that play into your decision to start (nsfmg)?

ABC: My experiences with PPD were a major impetus for Not Safe For Mom Group. At the time that I had it, it wasn’t really talked about. I didn’t know what was happening, and after I was diagnosed, it wasn’t like “other women have this, too.” Even after I was cured, I couldn't shake this feeling of having a very different experience, and it lingered. I felt like that whole first year of motherhood was colored by a feeling of otherness. I would be at my mom group, and I felt like there was this smoke screen between me and everyone else. I was different and my kid was different and I had been given the raw end of the deal. 

Now it seems just laughable - I feel like everyone has a story - but at the time, I felt very isolated. I’m always surprised by how that feeling is echoed in the stories and experiences of other mothers.

PB: Not Safe For Mom Group uses Instagram - and in particular, Instagram stories - in a more compelling, authentic, and conversation-based way than anyone else I’ve ever seen. It’s not just a brand. It’s a genuine space for community, conversation, and storytelling. What gave you the idea to use it like that?

ABC: I think it was because people started writing to me. I started receiving all these messages in response to my posts, and I just felt like they weren't for me. We were talking about such delicate topics - mental health, marriage, body image - and I wanted to throw it to the group every time I got a question. 

Once I started posting questions to the group, I saw how powerful it was. There is a lot of strength, insight and knowledge that comes from people who’ve experienced these things before or who are going through them now. I love this idea of a group coming in to be supportive because that’s what we're looking for when we’re in crisis in the middle of the night. People would be like, “It's like you're seeing me for the first time.” They didn’t necessarily want to be connected with each other in real life, they just wanted to disembody themselves, and connect with each other in the online space.

Alexis speaks at The Motherhood Center.

PB: (nsfmg) has experienced incredibly rapid growth over the last year. What challenges have you faced in growing the community?

“There is a lot of strength, insight and knowledge that comes from people who’ve experienced things before.” - Alexis Barad-Cutler

ABC: I feel like it's been hard to grow followers! I want to have that “swipe up” [that users get on Instagram when they reach 10,000 followers]. I struggle with the idea of having anyone do a takeover because what people write to me is so personal. I would hesitate to let anyone have access to my site. A lot of the methods my cohorts use to grow their audiences don’t work for me because of (nsfmg)’s intimacy and how the conversation is often driven by what the community needs and wants to talk about at the moment.. I just have to be okay with that and be slow and patient. It’s also hard to put a price on health and wellbeing in this space. Whether you charge people to go to their event is something I don't know is right. Even though I have to pay for things, I want it to be accessible to mothers. These are all questions that I’m still trying to work through. What is the business side of something that has so much heart in it?

PB: What are your hopes and dreams for (nsfmg)?

ABC: I would like to find a way to extend the conversation off of instagram. There have been times I have been censored, which is part of a growing trend in censoring motherhood spaces, the trans and queer community, and people of color. I would like to have an alternative forum where we can have these conversations. I hope there’s a way we can entice people to engage, but not on the app. I’d also like to partner with brands that are doing good and have these hard conversations with their audiences. If there is say a fertility vitamin and I want to host a conversation about the stigma of fertility, that would be a great marriage between (nsfmg) and their brand. There are different branches I’m working on for the business that would support the conversations that we’re having on the app. I’d like to host more live events, and I also have a product that I’m developing. If that works out, I would like to eventually create more of the types of products that “nobody talks about.”

PB: What are the missing motherhood conversations we still need to have?

ABC: This is a question I think about a lot. What are the things that I’m afraid to write about on Not Safe For Mom Group? 

When people were writing about the “mom rage” and how much they're losing it, I had some big feelings when so much of it came down to breastfeeding. So many of us lose sight of ourselves because of what we believe we have to do as mothers. I wanted to ask, had you considered not breastfeeding? “And give my baby poison?” There are certain topics that cause these factions - breastfeeding, sleep training, or working versus staying at home. There are maybe three or four topics that we can’t really talk about head on.

Another thing is politics. People like to believe that politics is separate to motherhood, that motherhood is its own special little corner, but it’s not. We have to talk about white supremacy. I want to talk about it more, but when I bring it up, I only get a couple of people who are like “right on, that’s what I want to talk about.”

Alexis Barad-Cutler will be in conversation with Powerbitches founder Rachel Hills at our next Salon event, on September 17. Click here for more information and to secure your tickets.