"Power is power," Margaret Atwood tells an audience recently at Syracuse University. "If you give some people more than others, they'll take it."

She says she is the “same type of feminist as Anita Hill-- one who believes in improving process and laws.” Atwood adds, "The more gender equality there is in a society, the less abuse there is."

This is why Atwood, 86, who has published more than 50 books of fiction, essays, poetry and a more recent memoir, is the keynote speaker at Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference 2026 in Washington, D.C. on Women’s Equality Day.

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The gender gap in AI adoption, exclusion, effects and economic impact is real, global and immediate. It is caused by many factors including reticence to embrace, sexism in human leaders and discrimination emerging in the technology itself. The systems and the culture in AI and tech need to change.

A recent report from Harvard Business School with researchers from Harvard, Stanfrod and Berkeley universities shows, “Gender gaps in generative AI use are nearly universal. Synthesizing data from 18 studies covering more than 140,000 individuals across the world, combined with estimates of the gender share of the hundreds of millions of users of popular generative AI platforms, we demonstrate that the gender gap in generative AI usage holds across nearly all regions, sectors, and occupations.”

As the mission of Take The Lead since it’s founding is gender parity in leadership across all sectors, the urgency of meeting that goal in AI leadership is even more apparent.

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During Women’s History Month, celebrating women leading top academic institutions is well-deserved. But it is at a time when gender and race studies are defunded and erased by proclamation, all while more women in this country than ever are attending college, graduate school and earning post-doctoral degrees.

“Of the top 200 institutions in the THE World University Rankings 2026, 58 have a female vice-chancellor or president – 29 per cent of the total,” according to Times Higher Education. “This was up slightly from 27 per cent at the same point the year before, and the seventh consecutive annual increase. The proportion of female leaders has shot up from just 17 per cent in 2019, when there were 34.”

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Busy is just a four-letter word if it doesn’t carry a purpose for you.

During Women’s History Month when the world looks on women leaders, innovators, inventors, creatives and activists who have changed the world --or just a corner of it-- yesterday and today, it makes sense to examine the mission behind the busyness.

There is a different approach to the mythical work life balance syndrome women—and men—but it is mostly women—are mandated to achieve, which often centers on the 20 or more things on a daily to do list of tasks.

Because historically and globally, in so many arenas, women’s worth is attached to the completed boxes of those lifelong to-do lists.

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The ongoing history of all women needs recognition, respect and honor during Women’s History Month.

Indigenous Women in this country and around the world, are championing the major issues facing them including entrepreneurship, funding, business systemic inclusion, fairness, climate leadership and acknowledgment of the horror that is the ongoing crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls.

“Listen to us, not as voices from the margins, but as equals,”  Indigenous leaders Nemonte Nenquimo, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Rukka Sombolinggi, said at the recent UN COP30 summit in Belém, Brazil.  

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