The Sum
Join Us to Lead With Your Vote
Issue 146 — October 26, 2020
Save the date! Thursday October 29, at 8 pm eastern time — celebrate your right to vote with a brilliant performance by Ari Afsar and Lauren Gunderson from their new “Jeannette: the Musical.”
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress and an ardent suffragist.
Read MoreSoledad O’Brien Explains Why Management of Energy is Your Essential Career Growth Skill
Issue 145 — October 18, 2020
A physicist friend once told me that everything in the world is ultimately just energy particles. In my non-scientifically trained mind, I visualized tiny pieces of matter dancing around amiably and without focus.
While my friend was referring to the physical world, the principle that everything is ultimately energy applies as well to leadership and to our individual career arcs. That’s because everything we give our time and attention to takes — energy.
Read MoreYes you can do something about unfair media coverage of women: here’s the secret
Issue 144 — October 5, 2020
I’ve gotta tell you, I get really tired of people complaining to me about something they saw in the news coverage of women. Whether it’s criticizing or loving Kamala Harris’s Chucks or the tone and timbre of a female leader’s voice, and don’t get me started on Hillary Clinton’s ankles and yellow pantsuit, women in leadership roles are scrutinized and stereotyped much more often than men. That’s surely true.
Read More“When there are nine” and other powerful quotes about gender equality from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Issue 143 — September 28, 2020
She was tiny. She was mighty. She was a brilliant legal strategist. She was lovingly dubbed “notorious” for her groundbreaking advances for women’s equality, autonomy, and therefore our power within society.
Yet U. S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke boundaries gently. Never wavering from her revolutionary vision of gender equality, she believed in making big change in small increments.
“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”
Read MoreHillary Clinton Caught up with Me on the Subject of Power
Issue 142 — September 14, 2020
Don’t get the wrong idea. I have great respect for Hillary Clinton, and she has been a woman ahead of her time in many ways. But her recent essay shows she has caught up with my core message about women’s relationship with power. Let me roll back the tape and tell you what I mean.
You know that great song in the musical “Hamilton” — “The Room Where It Happens?”
I was in the room where it happened 25 years ago. Two rooms where it happened, actually.
Read MoreGoing “On the Record” About How Sexual Harassment and Violence Erase Women and Thwart Their Leadership Intentions
Issue 141— September 7, 2020
Drew Dixon’s resume includes Former Vice President of A&R at Arista Records, a former director of A&R at Def Jam Recordings, the former general manager of John Legend’s label Homeschool Records, and the former manager of recording artist Estelle. She produced more hit records than I can count with artists you know. Dixon is the founder of the independent label The Ninth Floor, the tech-enabled beauty start-up EverythingDid, and the co-creator of the TV series Reciprocity.
Definitely an ambitious and intentional woman who knew from her teenage years that working in the music business was her dream.
Read MoreThank goodness Kamala Harris is ambitious, and that’s not all she is
Issue 140 — August 31, 2020
It was so predictable. Any woman who had the audacity to run for president must be too ambitious, said the wagging tongues and talking heads.
Ambitious when applied to a woman becomes an epithet. Applied to a man, it isn’t just a compliment, it’s an assumption.
Read MoreSeriously Unfinished Business: The 100th Anniversary of the Suffrage Amendment Didn’t Turn Out as Planned, but We Can Make It Turn Out Better
Issue 139 — August 24, 2020
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock in your quarantine, or have put yourself on a strict social media and television diet to get away from the political talking heads, you know this year, 2020, is the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women across the U.S. the right to vote.
Thousands of women’s organizations had planned celebrations leading up to this auspicious anniversary, some on the various significant dates leading up to August 26, the anniversary of when the amendment became formally part of the Constitution.
Read MoreDangly Earrings and Other Breaks with the Past
Issue 138 — August 10, 2020
CBS Sunday Morning reminded me, in a piece about President Gerald Ford’s photographer David Hume Kennerly, that August 9 was the anniversary of the date in 1974 when President Richard Nixon resigned from office. Why is this relevant?
Well, it is quite relevant to me, for it marked a major turning point in my life and my career. As it happens, that is also the date on which I was offered and accepted my first CEO position. I became executive director of the small young Planned Parenthood affiliate in West Texas.
Read MorePowerful women, you are a movement unto yourself.
Issue 137 — August 3, 2020
What do you think of when you think of a movement?
Picket signs? Pink hats? People marching and yelling? #BlackLivesMatter?Social justice perhaps?
It’s certainly true that we tend to think of movements as being about causes, because they often are causes that people feel strongly about.
Well what if the cause you feel strongly about is YOU?
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