Why Take The Lead?

I talked with Ms. Magazine’s Carmen Rios about why I pivoted one my career to women’s leadership parity, why Take The Lead focuses it’s 50 Women Can programs on depth and impact rather than mere numbers, and much more.

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She’s Done It for 40 Years: Ms. Magazine Honored for Auspicious Anniversary

When did you first see Ms. Magazine?

I can’t recall exactly the first time I saw it, but I do remember subscribing to it soon after it launched in 1972. I lived in Odessa TX, not exactly the bastion of feminism. But within the pages of Ms., I found women from all over the country saying what I’d been thinking. And I realized I wasn’t alone in feeling that something was terribly unfair about the way women were treated in society.

I also learned about the National Organization for Women from Ms. I joined as an at-large member and located the other five or six at-large members within a 100-mile radius.

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She’s Doing It: Ellen Snortland – Renaissance Woman Writes, Performs, Bakes, Growls

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxaLyMV8Vko[/youtube]

At eight years old, Ellen Snortland heard her father describe Winston Churchill as a “Renaissance man” and decided then and there that she would become a “Renaissance woman.”

Ellen more than fulfilled her vision for herself- she’s an author, journalist, women’s safety and human rights activist, actor, producer, and writing/media coach, and (full disclosure) an all round generous and wonderful friend. Oh, and she’s also an accomplished Norwegian Kransekake baker !

Ellen personifies many of the No Excuses Power Tools, but her voluminous talents all seem to emanate from her extraordinary ability to use Power Tool #9: Tell Your story. And telling the world her story has been a focus for Ellen in recent years…

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Friday Round Up on Saturday: Women’s Equality Day Edition

“Men, their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less.” ~ Susan B. Anthony, 19th Century Women’s Rights and Suffrage Leader

In celebration and in reflection of Women’s Equality Day, this week’s Round Up collects some wonderful reading about it. Not only about the time when women achieved the right to vote via the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on August 26th, 1920 but also frank and honest discussions about where women are today in this journey and about the work ahead. Here’s a great timeline from the Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership, headed until her untimely death last week by my friend and dedicated leader for women’s equality, Nora Bredes.

PANELPanel at the University of Rochester’s Susan B. Anthony Center for Women’s Leadership. With Susan B. and Elizabeth Cady Stanton pictured in the background, and the late Nora Bredes at the podium moderating panelists Jennifer Lawless (Director of the American University Women and Politics Institute), Allida Black (Founder of the Eleanor Roosevelt Project) and me (in my Susan B Anthony costume–she always wore black with a red scarf) in October, 2010.

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