Who Will the Woman of Tomorrow Be?
It seems only right that as Women’s History Month draws to a close, we don’t just look backward but that we also focus forward to ask what women of the future might or should become.
Who do you think will be the woman of tomorrow? How would you define her character and characteristics? What external forces will influence her? How will she define herself? What are your aspirations for women’s lives five, ten, 25 years hence? Please post your comments here and let’s discuss these questions. Here’s one to start you off:
Will she be a “Powered Woman”? When I asked this question via Twitter (I’m Heartfeldt there), @MadamaAmbi replied with her ideas about the “powered woman“. I love that we both chose the same adjective–“powered” rather than “empowered” or “powerful”–to describe where we think women are and/or will be. It’s a subtle but significant language shift that to me implies women are at a historic point of choice.
An excerpt from the piece Madama Ambi sent me:
A powered woman feels safe inhabiting her body, her authentic self, and her sexuality. She knows how to be healthy and to live her life fully without needing to achieve an idealized feminine sexuality or an idealized sexualized body. She is self-determining and educated. She feels safe on the streets, in parking lots, in subways & buses and in her own home. She owns her own sexuality independent of idealized images of marital bliss or romantic fairy tales, and feels comfortable initiating sexual intimacy as well as declining it. She knows when she is genuinely interested in being sexual or when she feels pressured. She knows when she is ready to have children or when she feels pressured. She understands the consequences of sexual intimacy and decides for herself how she wants to be sexual and with whom. She feels free to embrace both men and women as sexual partners and possible life-partners. She understands what having children will require of her and she determines for herself when she is ready to be a mother. She feels free to live her life without having children and without partnering. She is self-determining at every critical stage of life and makes choices based upon a strong education and a solid sense of self. She pursues her interests and is not conflicted about combining work/career with raising children. A powered woman has choices and is able to determine for herself how she wants to support herself and her children. She has received a quality preschool-through-12 public education, affordable college/graduate school with programs to help women with children attend school . She has affordable if not FREE access to training for a career with placement in child-friendly jobs. Child-friendly means childcare on-site. Child-friendly means excellent prenatal health care for women, including health insurance coverage for reproductive control/family planning. Child-friendly means on-site family physicians at school and at work. A powered woman has access to all of the job/career opportunities available to men, at the identical wage, with a flexible job structure to allow her to combine her work life and her caregiving responsibilities. A powered woman does not have to choose between having kids and having a career, and she receives governmental, corporate, business, societal and faith-based support to do both. A powered woman who can progress in her career while caring for her family will be a powered mother who feels valued for her contribution to the work force and to raising powered, healthy, creative, productive, collaborative citizens. The central and most critical unit of American life is NOT the family. Family is the next concentric circle. The central unit is A Powered Woman.
INTENTIONING
Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women
Will Take The Lead for (Everyone’s) GoodThe new book from Gloria Feldt about the future, taking the leadership lessons learned from this disruption and creating a better world for all through the power of intention.
So what do you think? How would you define the Powered Woman? What do you think future historians will write during Women’s History Month?
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.