Hot Takes: Country Club Feminism, The Barbie Movie, Taylor Swift, & More with Carol Cox and Diane Diaz: Podcast Ep. 351

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351-SYB-HotTakes.mp3: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Carol Cox:
We’re giving you our hot takes on cultural trends like the Barbie movie, Taylor Swift, the supermodels in country club feminism. On this episode of The Speaking Your Brand podcast. More and more women are making an impact by starting businesses, running for office and speaking up for what matters. With my background as a political analyst, entrepreneur and speaker, I interview and coach purpose driven women to shape their brands, grow their companies and become recognized as influencers in their field. This is speaking your brand, your place to learn how to persuasively communicate your message to your audience. Hi and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox, joined once again by our lead speaking coach, Diane Diaz. Hi, Diane.

Diane Diaz:
Hi, Carol.

Carol Cox:
This episode, we’re giving the listeners an inside listen, not inside. Look an inside. Listen to all of our Voxer conversations that we have.

Diane Diaz:
They’re fun.

Carol Cox:
They are a lot of fun. We go on rants quite a bit. And so, like, we’ll rant to each other about something and then it’s great. It’s asynchronous, but we’re usually at the same time, so we should probably just pick up the phone. I don’t know. But we do it on Voxer and so it could be everything from the Barbie movie, which we saw together back in August, which we’ll talk about, could be the Barbie movie. It could have been when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade last summer. There was a lot of rants and raves about that. So we’re using this episode to do what is often called hot takes. So, yes, we are doing hot takes on things that are in the news or cultural trends. We’re going to do these episodes every once in a while again, to kind of give you an inside look at our Boxer conversation. So hopefully you’ll enjoy it. If you do, let us know, Send us an email or let us know on LinkedIn what you think. So today we’re going to talk about everything from the Rad Trad movement on TikTok. If you don’t know what that means, you’re going to find out. We’re going to talk about the Barbie movie. We’re going to talk about Taylor Swift. We’re going to talk about the new documentary on Apple Tv+ around the supermodels. And then we’re going to wrap it all together to talk about what I have termed country club feminism. I don’t really know a better word for it. Country club feminism. You probably will recognize it once we start talking about that.

Carol Cox:
So let’s kick off first. I think kind of like the impetus for this episode came from thinking about, you know, I don’t use TikTok personally, but I obviously kind of see or hear what’s going on on TikTok trends that are going on either from other social media sites that I that I use or from mostly from news articles that I read. And the Rad Trad movement is about like radical traditionalism. And there’s a lot of young women on TikTok who are espousing the benefits of being a traditional housewife a la the 1950s, you know, Leave It to Beaver, traditional housewife. And yes, they make it seem really appealing, like everything is nice and perfect and shiny and there’s no problems in this world and they feel well taken care of. Now, of course, as a child of the 1970s and 80s Gen X, I know that certainly is not the case because as what they tend to forget is that women in the 1950s had zero economic independence. For the most part. They couldn’t get mortgages in their own name. They couldn’t get credit cards in their own name. You know, usually they were paid much, much less than men in comparable roles, even less so than they are today. So, you know, I feel like there’s so much backlash to the rights and the visibility and the gains that women have experienced over the past generation or so. And, you know, this backlash is always happen, but it saddens me to see it happen with Gen Z, with these younger women.

Diane Diaz:
I agree with that and I did not know this term Rad Trad until you brought it up, Carol, because I also am not on TikTok, but I. I think it’s it’s upsetting because to see a group latch on to something as desirable when they themselves don’t know the true ins and outs of how it was. And to make it appear that it is so desirable now when it was such a struggle for the women that had to live it. I know my mom did not have access to a bank account or mortgage or any financial freedom whatsoever. And it’s just feels really. Kind of disturbing to me to see. It’s sort of like whitewashing the concept and making it feel like it’s such a wonderful thing when in fact it was a huge struggle. So to see people latch on to that, it’s upsetting.

Carol Cox:
But and it’s also it’s upsetting, but it’s also understandable. And here’s why. Because if we think about what feminism is and what feminists have been striving for for decades now, the very simplest definition is feminism is about equal rights for men and women and now, of course, expanded to equal rights for all genders. So what is equal rights mean? Well, I would include on that reproductive rights. So bodily autonomy, which the Supreme Court, of course, and now many state legislatures, including where we live in Florida, sadly, have been taking those rights away from women more and more extreme. Also economic independence, being able to support ourselves on our own and having access to all the same financial instruments and financial means that men have obviously legal rights, you know, making sure that we can’t be discriminated against because of our gender as well as obviously race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and all the other protected classes. But really, you know, and I know we talk about this quite a lot, feminism, Diane, feminism being about your choice. So like my mom chose to be a stay at home mom. That’s what she wanted to do when she had me in the 1970s and then my sister and then my brother a little bit after that, that was her choice. Whereas for me, I wanted to have a career, you know, as a high school student, I couldn’t wait to go to college, go to graduate school, get into my career. I loved, you know, ideas and thinking about, you know, working in academia or having my own business. And so for me, that was the path that I wanted to go down. And so I feel like, you know, especially in the 70s and 80s, feminism got a bad name from a lot of women who wanted a more traditional lifestyle for themselves. And so maybe feminists at the time kind of went a little bit too far on the other end by encouraging more and more women to have careers, then I always come back to, Well, but then how do you financially support yourself when things happen that you don’t necessarily expect?

Diane Diaz:
Yes. Yes. And. I love the definition of feminism as being about choice because, yes, you if you want to be a stay at home mom or a housewife or however you want to term it, that is your choice. If you want to be a career person, that is your choice, right? If you want to go, just travel around Europe, that’s also your choice. So I like the idea that women have choice and so to me or all genders have choice. So to me, feminism is that. And then like you said, like the, the upsetting part is that it is not presented in the rad trad movement’s not really presenting maybe the real picture of what it really is. And but again, it’s social media, so you know, that’s what happens there. So.

Carol Cox:
Right. Because they’re forgetting that in order for those things to to work out the way that they want you, we have to have a really strong social support system. And we know that here in the United States, we just do not have that. We don’t have mandatory maternity leave for women who have babies. And I just recently listened to a podcast and they cited the statistic that in the US, 25% of women workers have to go back to work two weeks after they give birth. They’re only given two weeks of leave. I don’t even know if that’s paid or not. It depends on the company. Two weeks. I mean, can you imagine first, as the woman who just had a baby, her body is still recovering from that. But then also the bonding time with the baby. I mean, two weeks is like is like a blink of an eye, much less a month or or anything longer. So we clearly don’t have the social support system around maternity leave or paternity leave. Just just in the past week or so, the childcare subsidies that were put in place during the pandemic have ended. So now and and I’ve seen articles which said that it could be over half of childcare centers, daycare centers may have to close because they’re just not going to have the funds. And, you know, obviously parents don’t have as much money as it really cost to put a child into into daycare like that. And so then we know the burden primarily falls on women, women who are working, working, because, number one, they want to support the household. But also a lot of women enjoy working, you know, enjoy having that outlet as well. And now, again, it’s the burden is being put back on them because sadly, there are too many people who don’t want to support and subsidize things like childcare, which benefits everyone, whether you have children or not.

Diane Diaz:
Absolutely. I don’t have children and I’m fully in support of the childcare subsidy because it is about the entire community, not just one individual. Right.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. Just like I don’t have children either, but I gladly pay my property taxes to support good schools because I want good schools because guess what I want? Healthy adults are good citizens because that benefits every single person. This is this is why we’re progressives. Diane Right. No surprise. No surprise to the listeners.

Diane Diaz:
Right. This is why our Voxer conversation. So there you go.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. All right. So this is kind of like what what what set this off. And then, of course, when the Barbie movie came out this summer, we were so excited to go go see it. So we went in August to the movie theater with another friend of ours. And I remember just sitting in the theater and like my mouth was agape for like so much of it because if you’ve seen it, you know what I mean? If you haven’t seen it, go see it, because it is it is so smartly done. Greta Gerwig is the director and also co-wrote the screenplay with her partner. And then, of course, Margot Robbie, who stars in it, who had like the idea for it originally. And she was shopping, looking for directors for a while. But then like the, the sets and the colors and the songs and the acting, I mean, it’s just like a visual feast for the eyes. But then but then, of course, the message.

Diane Diaz:
Yes. Yes. You know, seeing that movie, I don’t know. Did you ever go to FAO Schwarz here? The toy store? Yes. And they had a whole Barbie section. So it was almost like being plunked down in the middle of the Barbie section at FAO Schwarz. That’s what it felt like watching that movie. I felt like I was in Barbie land, right? I felt like I was there.

Carol Cox:
Yeah, it was It was so well executed, so well done. Just and then, like in the very beginning of the movie, they have a reference to 2001 A Space Odyssey. In the beginning of that movie. Like it’s so smart the way that they did it. And you know, it keeps the pace, but it’s also very much done as a satire or as a parody. And this is where I applaud Mattel, the toy company, for being willing to do this, because it definitely, definitely criticizes Mattel in so many ways. And but Mattel basically was like, okay, if we’re going to do the Barbie movie, we know audiences are smart. We know that they understand what’s been going on and all the complications that Barbie has had since the 1950s when it came into being as a toy. So if Mattel hadn’t been willing to do that in the movie, I really think they would have faced huge criticism and and the movie would not have done anywhere near as well as it did.

Diane Diaz:
I agree with that. And I think it’s it’s very the way they handled the movie was very is very to me, very indicative of how the company has handled Barbie and her whole appeal or lack thereof for some people and criticisms that they faced with Barbie in her story and how she how Barbie I’m talking about her. She’s a real person. But how Barbie has progressed through the years based on feedback. I feel like they really yeah, I’m not saying they’re perfect, but I feel like they do listen to what’s out sort of in the ether about women and women’s rights and and look at Barbie and all that she has done. Right. And so I think they’ve responded well as a company in that regard. And so to see them handle the movie in this way actually is no surprise because it makes sense. And they do need to, as a company, marketing these dolls, they need to appeal to the next up and coming generations of girls who are going to buy these dolls and their moms who are going to buy them for them, who are going to be becoming more progressive and looking at things in a more socially conscious way. They have to respond to that. So I think it’s a good move for them from that standpoint as well as to respond to what’s happening in the social sort of zeitgeist.

Carol Cox:
That’s true because I know that parents starting probably in like the 90s and 2000 didn’t want to be buying Barbie dolls for their own children because they had a complicated relationship with it. And thinking about it, you know, obviously because of Barbies, you know, well, not even perfect figure like impossible figures, the way that the way that she is shaped. But here’s what’s so fascinating about it is that when she was when the toy was was put into the market in the 1950s, the only dolls kids had at the time were Barbie dolls. Right. So the message that little girl and let’s face it, it was girls, little girls who were getting these dolls the little girls got with the baby dolls was guess what? We’re teaching you how to to fit your gender role by learning how to take care of baby dolls. Yes. And so then when Barbie was introduced as an adult figure who had her own life, had her own agency, had her own career, had a figure, had a figure, had like high heeled shoes. Right. And clothes and hair to brush. And Ken was there, but he was not the center of her world. And this is, I think, where so much of the backlash came from. The Barbie movie this summer was that it showed that for women that men don’t have to be the center of our worlds, that we like, We we have agency and we can choose what we want to do and the life that we want to live.

Diane Diaz:
I love that. I love that. And it’s it is almost like that the Bechdel test, you know, where it’s like so it’s almost like Barbie was the early version of the Bechdel Test where she just was herself. And then Ken, for lack of a better word, was an accessory. Right? You could purchase. But it’s a it’s a good point because it was just a different a different offering and a different option for girls at that time. So. Okay, baby dolls, you’re going to be a mom. Here comes Barbie. Now you’re going to be a career woman. You get to choose what you want to be.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. And, you know, here’s and here’s one of the things I think about the Barbie movie also that kind of ruffled some people’s feathers. And I think and the movie did address this is that the first, let’s say third of the movie, it’s Barbie’s world Barbie Land. It is very much her world. She and all the other and there’s mostly all women. And the Kens are there and they they rule the roost. They’re all the Supreme Court justices. You know, they’re the president. They do everything. I know. It’s like.

Diane Diaz:
Well, as RGB would say, when there are nine.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. When there are nine. And and so then. And the kids are there kind of as a second thought. And so like, you know, Ken wants to have like, you know, go out on a date with Barbie, and Barbie’s like, oh, well, but its, you know, its girls like its girls, you know. Party time tonight, you know. So we’re not having the and then, and then Barbie’s like, oh but every night is like that and you do understand like, okay, Ken’s feeling left out. Like, right, Like maybe this is where the satire comes in. This is why the movie’s a parody. It’s not. It’s not prescriptive. Like it’s not telling us this is how society should be because then it comes back, obviously. Can they go into the real world? Ken figures out what patriarchy is, which is hilarious and comes back and wants to institute patriarchy back into Barbie land. And you see the, you know, the roles flipped. And I think that’s why the movie is so genius, because it elucidates these tensions and understanding that we don’t want one extreme or the other. Right? Right. We want to back to feminism. We want to have equal rights and an equal, say.

Diane Diaz:
An equal choice.

Carol Cox:
An equal choice. Exactly. Yeah. So it was definitely in the Barbie movie. The feminist message was super clear. At one point, one of the women creates this little speech to give to the other women, and I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen the movie, but this little speech and I’m like, Oh my God, I need to like record that.

Diane Diaz:
Say that to ourselves and share it with people. Yeah.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. Yeah. So that that was fun. And the other thing about the Barbie movie is that the reason I believe it has done so well other than just it being, you know, so well done and the visuals and everything, was that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie had a distinct vision and a distinct voice for the movie, for the screenplay and then for the execution of it. It wasn’t kind of like, Oh, let’s just go make a superhero movie or, you know, a toy movie based on this, and then have them do kind of formulaic stuff. Like let’s let’s have a vision and a voice for it. And that’s what I want for you all to think about the content that you’re creating and your signature talk and how you’re sharing with your audiences is thinking about what is that distinct voice and that vision that you have that you want to share. All right, let’s keep going on our hot takes on cultural trends. Taylor Swift. Now, I don’t know. I love her. I don’t consider myself a swiftie because I don’t follow her on social media. Obviously, we’re a little older, too. And, you know, I don’t follow her on social media. Obviously. I would love to go to her concert. Haven’t been able to get tickets, so I don’t know. Maybe that will happen one day. I would love to go because, you know, obviously it is an extraordinary performance. And she’s an extraordinary artist, musician, storyteller, performer, businesswoman. I mean, so of course, you all have heard that she has is dating now this NFL player, Travis Kelce.

Carol Cox:
I think it’s Kelsey. Kelsey. Okay. Travis. Kelsey. Now, by the time this episode airs, who knows what the status of their relationship will be. But as of right now, they’re dating. And of course, it’s given and it’s been funny because you see on social media like these two streams crossing of like the Swifties and the NFL like people and then trying to figure out each other’s culture because it feels so different from one another. But here I was reading an article in The Washington Post about this, and here’s what it said tonight. And I thought this was so revealing and I’ll quote from the article, it says this because there’s been a backlash about Taylor Swift and whether she’s going to mess up his game. You know, is he going to get distracted from dating her and, you know, all this kind of BS? So here’s what the article said. The Taylor Swift backlash is a heightened illustration of the tightrope many famous women find themselves walking. She should be beautiful but not know it. Have a lovely voice, but not a lot of pin, a lot of pinion. Her feelings, if she has them, should be kept to herself or left to the masses to speculate over and imbue with medium. She might be a worldwide influencer, but once she is in a relationship, it is she who should be influenced.

Diane Diaz:
Do you know what that reminds me of? Sort of Adam and Eve in the garden. She has the apple, she tempts him. It’s all her fault, right? If anything goes awry, I mean, it’s always it’s always sort of positioned that way.

Carol Cox:
Oh, my God. Diane, this is, like, 2000 years old. Of these tightrope can’t get. Wow. Oh, my goodness. But it just shows mean again, Taylor Swift top of her game, right? An amazing career. All these albums. She’s creating this concert tour that she is on and still she gets the criticism and backlash. And this is why I always say and I tell myself this and we tell our clients this and we talk about this on the podcast. So many women who have a public voice, whether it’s in that magnitude of Taylor Swift or Beyonce or in the micro example of of just being in your local community or industry and talking about topics, there is a chance of getting backlash and criticism. But guess what? It doesn’t really matter who you know, who you think you are or how you have to be. It will happen because that’s what the system does in order to kind of like make sure that it stays intact.

Diane Diaz:
Yep. It’s to put it in check. Like, just remember your place.

Carol Cox:
Exactly. So that’s our hot take on Taylor Swift and the NFL. We’ll see what happens after that. Wish her all all the best.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, me, too.

Carol Cox:
All right. So let’s talk about the next kind of thing that’s happening right now, which is on Apple Tv+. It’s a new four part documentary series called The Supermodels, and it’s about the four women who kind of coined this term supermodels back in the 1980s and 1990s Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington. Now, again, as a Gen X girl growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s, I saw them everywhere. You know, every magazine cover, all the fashion shows, videos, music videos, Pepsi commercials. Oh, my God, the George Michael Freedom 90 music video. Love that. Like, I love that song. Love the video. So they were everywhere. And of course, as as a young girl, young woman growing up in that time, we all know and we still happens today, the message that we get from society not I’m not saying from the supermodels, but from society as a whole, from marketing and advertising and beauty and fashion is, of course, capitalism. This idea of perfection. Right? Buy this product or buy these clothes and you too can look like them, have their skin, have their figure, what have you. And so we know that it’s an impossible ideal because they’re genetically blessed, Of course.

Diane Diaz:
Yes.

Carol Cox:
I mean, they just are. They clearly are. And they’re beautiful women and they’re smart and, you know, and seeing them in present day and, you know, and what they continue to do with their charity work and trying to empower women is really beautiful. And the documentary touches on this maybe less so than what I would have liked. But this tension between female beauty and especially this idea of like female beauty perfection and the power and influence that they were gaining as they got more and more popular, as they were commanding higher fees, as more and more fashion designers and other people wanted to work with them so they were gaining more power and influence. But yet they also, like Naomi Campbell, had to deal with racism, you know, being a black supermodel. And what I found really encouraging was that Linda Evangelista said that at the time, again, this was late 80s, early 90s, she noticed that Naomi wasn’t getting booked for as many of the fashion shows as she would. So she said to the designers, I will only come if Naomi comes to talk about being an ally. Yes. So that’s, you know, you know, thinking about, you know, taking away from these these hot takes. And what we’re talking about here is that we’re sharing these things not just because they’re things that are going on in the moment and kind of our thoughts on them. But what what can we draw from this, from these, you know, people who have done these things and they weren’t doing it so consciously like, oh, I’m going to be an ally today and I’m going to figure out how to do this. And now they’re like, This is messed up. Like, why is this happening? I want to make sure that I’m using the leverage that I have to make sure that that this does not continue in this way.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah, I love that because I think that it’s when you’re in the midst of the system, it’s very easy to just you to fall victim to the system and just kind of go along with it, right? That’s easy. It is really hard to use your voice and speak up and try to effect change. But in that example with the supermodels, you can see where it’s just she’s trying to effect change just with one woman, with one other woman who’s a supermodel. And that changed those going to have an impact on so many other people. So if you can just use your voice to change one situation, one person, one company, one whatever. Imagine the impact that that ends up having.

Carol Cox:
Oh, absolutely. And then and I know that Naomi Campbell said that having models like Iman, who had walked the runway before her, gave her the belief that she, too, could be on that runway. And the same thing with other other women seeing Naomi Campbell on more and more runways and understanding that they, too, could be there.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, I love that.

Carol Cox:
All right. So now let’s get into what I’m calling country club feminism. So obviously, we’ve talked about feminism and where it’s showing up in the culture, some of the backlash that it’s inevitably been experiencing. And, you know, this idea of country club feminism has been going on for a long, long time, well before kind of this year or this current cycle that we’re in. And this is how I see it, is that women’s groups like women’s business groups, that they, you know, they want to support women like that’s why they’re in existence. You know, they want to help other women. They want to empower women. They want more women in leadership. So they they and I genuinely believe they want those things. They really do. But they end up reinforcing the status quo. And by the status quo, I mean, you know, patriarchy in the in the biggest sense. But the status quo in the sense that nothing really changes. You know, I’ve been you know, I’ve I’m old enough to have seen, you know, three decades worth of politics and women in leadership and business and tech and all of that. And we’re still fighting the same battles. Things still don’t change.

Carol Cox:
We still don’t have pay equity. We still don’t have enough women in government and politics. We still don’t have enough women in board seats or in prominent positions. And I feel like a lot of it is because, you know, these women’s groups and the women who do achieve a lot of status, they they again, because they want to, but they end up reinforcing the status quo. So I’m thinking back to, you know, meetings and events that I tend to long, long time ago. And there was one in particular, Diane, that we were at together. Yeah, and we were and we didn’t I didn’t know much about the agenda. I just, you know, I bought a ticket well in advance and I was just going because you were going and other women that I knew were going. And so we get there and, you know, we’re at the luncheon tables around tables, and then the speaker gets introduced. And this is a woman’s event. This is a woman’s business event whose mission is to support women business owners. That’s what they do. The speaker gets introduced and who was the speaker, Diane? Was it a woman?

Diane Diaz:
A very well known sort of celebrity man?

Carol Cox:
Who was paid a good amount of money to be there, right?

Diane Diaz:
Yep.

Carol Cox:
So this is so why I mean, I know why he was selected, but we’re not going to get into that. Like, there are other reasons that were, you know, self-serving on the part of of the person involved, but really, like think about the message that is sending to the women in attendance at that event that there is not a woman speaker that they could have found, which clearly there was. Who could come and share a message to that audience that when instead of reinforcing the status quo, would challenge it and give women the inspiration and the motivation to do bigger things for themselves. Mhm.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, that was probably one of the most disappointing events I’ve attended. Ever because I was so I was very taken aback by it. I kind of shocked and then kind of upset.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. So if you’re involved in a in a women’s group or please make sure that you have women speakers at your events. Obviously, if you you know, if we want male allies, we want men to see women in positions of authority, in positions of influence. Absolutely. But we also know if you’re keynoting a woman’s event, I really believe it should be a woman who is on that stage 100%.

Diane Diaz:
I mean, if you’re having an event for that’s focused on people with disabilities, your speaker should be someone with disability. If you’re having an event for black women, your speaker should probably be a black woman, right? So like we’re we need representation and we need to set the tone for what the message is. Yes.

Carol Cox:
And you can still have a panel discussion that has more people on it. But as far as like your headliners, for example, if I was asked to keynote a headline, an event that was primarily geared towards black women or women of color, I would, you know, obviously have a conversation with them like, okay, what are you looking for and all that and say, you know, is there an opportunity instead to have me serve as part of a panel discussion with some other women and have your headliner be someone who is more reflective of the group? Because I just feel like it’s a better experience for the audience.

Diane Diaz:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because because it is about having an event is telling a story. Right. And so the story should be authentic and that doesn’t feel authentic, right. When there’s that disconnect.

Carol Cox:
And I would feel really awkward.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, of course.

Carol Cox:
But you know that dude who got paid wherever he got paid fine. Oh, he felt oh, he was loving it. He was loving it.

Diane Diaz:
I’m sure. I’m sure he felt fine about that.

Carol Cox:
All right. So, yeah, so make sure that, you know, we’re we’re headlining diverse women at these events. But the other thing that I often see is events and conferences where it’s the same women over and over again who are always celebrated, who are always given the awards, who are always given the nominations. And, you know, I see this across the board, like different industries, different geographic locations, different types of events. And I understand, you know, I think there’s a couple reasons for this. Number one is that it just feels easy, like, oh, these are the women who come top of mind or maybe there are women already know, so I’m just going to pick them. Also, I know it’s a little bit of I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine. Right? There’s like this reciprocity with it, which again, I totally understand. But then it leaves no room for up and coming women or for other women who are not part of the quote unquote, country club circuit.

Diane Diaz:
I think it’s also similar to what happens in politics. Right. And I think what it does as well is it it. Eliminates potentially different and good ideas from bubbling up because you’re not getting those different voices. And that’s that’s really bad for all of us.

Carol Cox:
Yes, because, you know, study after study shows that diversity in teams and groups and all types of diversity outperforms. I can’t even say the word homogeneity.

Diane Diaz:
Oh, right, right, right. That’s a tough word.

Carol Cox:
That’s a very tough word. Should outperforms. Sameness. Sameness.

Diane Diaz:
There you go.

Carol Cox:
We’ll just change the word. All right. Yes. And so and so, again, this idea of, you know, always kind of celebrating the same women or, you know, headlining the same women, is that the other thing that I see is not happening is they don’t push for those changes that would make a real difference, whether it is pay equity or, you know, if it’s in a certain industry or a certain geographic area, you know, how can we support more women and, you know, with with real wages? Or back to our earlier conversation about that social support system, also about board seats. So seats on boards can be very influential. Sometimes they’re just about visibility, but it really does expand your network, you know, with people who can make a difference. But again, it’s the same people who always get the board seats. And so it’s like, you know, if you are ever involved in any of these discussions, you know, try to make sure that some women who maybe are underrepresented or don’t have those same top of mind opportunities get that opportunity, but also for yourself, put yourself into the running. Like, you know, Diane, you have a whole talk about it’s time to brag and nominate yourself for these things too. Yes.

Diane Diaz:
Yeah. The talk I gave was about just that. I nominated nominated myself. Also hard word, nominated myself for an award early in my career because my boss would nominate me. But you you have to speak up, right? And and not only champion yourself and be your own best ally, but try to be an ally for others as well so that we can start getting these better ideas and these new ideas and these different ideas that are they’re going to be good for all of us, but we need to support other other diverse voices and people to get in those positions.

Carol Cox:
And back to the point about politics, to encouraging more women to run for office, you know, as they say, women have to be asked multiple times to run and don’t blame them because it’s a lot of work. They have a lot of responsibilities already as it is. You know, if they have a family, again, a lot of times a lot of that responsibility falls on them. And if they’re working and also it’s like you really need a strong support system to run for office and you need a strong financial support system to raise the money to run. So I understand why women are reluctant or hesitant when they’re tapped. And this is why, again, the people who are doing the tapping need to make sure they’re providing those resources to the women they want. Otherwise, it’s an empty it’s an empty ask.

Diane Diaz:
Yes.

Carol Cox:
All right. So here’s the thing. The men who are in power, like this version of country club feminism, it suits them really well because women kind of stay in their groups and they kind of stay in their lanes and they reinforce the status quo. So, of course, they like it. And, you know, the women who are in these groups who benefit from this version of feminism, quote unquote, feminism, they like it because it maintains their status within the group. And, you know, these are hard truths, like, you know, as white women, we know we benefit a lot from that. And we know that historically the waves of feminism have benefited white women more than they benefited black women and women of color. And that’s one thing that we are very aware of and very intentional about, which is why we talk a lot about diverse women. And we we make sure that whether it’s on this podcast or with the events that we’re participating in, that we want to make sure that that there’s a lot of representation there.

Diane Diaz:
Yes, absolutely. I like that that idea that, you know, looking for diverse voices, but making sure that we you know, that’s why it’s the status quo. Right, is because it’s it just stays that way. And then, yeah, we are in it and we benefit from it. But those of us who recognize that need to be the ones to speak up and need to be the ones to put other people forward and bring other people’s voices up into the forefront so that people can hear them.

Carol Cox:
Yeah. So still go attend these women’s groups because you can be that voice and you can make the suggestions, Hey, how about this person to be our keynote speaker at our next annual event? Or invite women who traditionally would not have come or would not have been invited to come invite them to go as well, so that we that diversity starts to build and of course, support the groups that are already doing a great job with this because they need that that support, whether it’s you showing up, you giving them visibility for the events that they’re doing, you buying tickets to their events, whatever it happens to be. And then finally, as we’ve been sharing throughout this entire episode and really this entire podcast and the work that we do is how important it is to use your voice and to share your story, to share your experiences so that other women know that they’re not alone, that they may have similar thoughts and similar experiences to you. Last week we did an entire episode around storytelling and this idea of authentic storytelling versus contrived storytelling. That’s a great episode to go back to if you want to think more about sharing your story.

Carol Cox:
We also have a workshop coming up on November 16th. So this is on Zoom. It’s a three hour long workshop. Gives you the opportunity to work on your key stories for your story bank so that you have your stories ready to go for your presentations and the other content that you put out. And so it’s three hours where we give you some instruction on how to tell great stories. We give you the story prompts for these different types of stories to put in your story bank. You get time to work on them and you get an opportunity to practice sharing them and get feedback from us. You can get all the details about that workshop, plus the personal branding workshop we’re doing on October 26th at speaking your brand.com/workshops. That’s plural speaking your brand.com/workshops. Diane, thank you so much for bringing our Voxer conversations to the podcast. This was a lot of fun. For those of you listening, if you want us to do more hot takes in the future, let us know. Send us an email or reach out to us on LinkedIn. Those links are in the show notes. Diane, thank you so much. Thank you.

Diane Diaz:
Carol. It was fun.

Carol Cox:
Until next time. Thanks for listening.

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