Posts in The Sum
Intentioning Democracy: 5 Power Moves Only You Can Make

Issue 256 — April 8, 2024

Women who fear they are losing hard won rights and leadership opportunities often ask me what to do about a world in which they see their daughters having fewer voting rights, equal rights, and reproductive rights than they have had.

So when I spoke on April 3, 2024 to the San Antonio 100, I tackled that question by starting with lessons from our history, inspiration that comes from knowing their power, and challenged them to make five power moves to shape the future they want.

Read More
What a Week: Making Women’s History and Future Every Day

Issue 254 — March 18, 2024

I absolutely love Women’s History Month. I love it as an opportunity to write into the generally known history the many women who have been overlooked or under-recognized for their accomplishments.

And increasingly, I focus on tomorrow’s history that we each make by our actions today.

Know your history and you can create the future of your choice.

Read More
The #1 Action You Can Take Today To Make Life More #GenderFair

Issue 254 — March 3, 2024

How many clip art flowers and pink figures, celebratory Women’s History Month posts have you seen already this March — and we’re just a few days into it? Somehow it seems that many people have forgotten (if they ever knew) that women needed this special month, just as February was Black History Month for the same reason — because the narratives of history have not been written with our lens, and often our accomplishments have been downright ignored — or stolen.

Read More
How Are We Doing? 10 Years of Take The Lead

Issue 253 — February 26, 2024

The late bombastic New York mayor, Ed Koch, was famous for going around the city asking, “How am I doing?”

So as Take The Lead kicks off its 10th anniversary year, exactly 10 years after its first big public launch event at Arizona State University’s Gammage Auditorium, we’re asking you, “How are we doing?”

Read More
From Lucy to Leadership Part 2: Our Origins’ Central Question

Issue 252 — February 11, 2024

Last weekend, I went to see the movie I think should win Academy Awards in every category: Ava DuVernay’s rendition of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

After writing last week about the discovery of the 3.2 million year old hominid fossil Lucy in Hadar, Ethiopia 50 years ago by paleoanthropologist and founder of the Institute of Human Origins Donald Johanson, I wanted to explore further the question of why we humans are the way we are.

Read More
When Leadership Requires Keeping Your Hand On the Plow

Issue 247 — December 11, 2023

“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.” — Alice Paul, suffragist leader and author of the Equal Rights Amendment, which a century later still is not published into the U.S. Constitution.

Read More
Wear the Shirt of Change: Representing the Power of Women's Leadership This Giving Tuesday

Issue 246 — November 27, 2023

No doubt you have noticed that Giving Tuesday 2023 is today, November 27. I’m challenging you to share what’s on the shirt of your convictions about women’s leadership.

My personal favorite shirt is historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s well-used quote, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” But today I’m wearing the shirt designed by Michael Stars for this Giving Tuesday.

Read More