A Message From The Creator

“If I am not good to myself, how can I expect anyone else to be good to me?” 
― Maya Angelou

Inspirational Woman Of The Day

Judith Butler

Judith Butler is successful feminist theorist, who has contributed greatly to the ever expanding field of feminist theory in the last twenty years. Born in 1956 in Cleaveland Ohio, Butler describes herself as being a difficult child, always getting into trouble at school for failing to follow teachers orders. Despite her confessed challenges growing up, she went on to study Philosophy at Yale University, where she received her Ph.D in 1984.

 Butler has an extensive amount of published work, which cover various different aspects of feminist and philosophical theory. Some of her key works include Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990), Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (1993), andExcitable Speech: Politics of the Performance (1997).

 In her academic writings, Butler has introduced gender theories that are widely recognised in the feminist theoretical field as being greatly influential to modern understandings of sex and gender categories. Arguably the most influential of these theories is her concept of ‘gender performativity’, which she refers to in order to suggest that individuals develop and perform gender in society as a result of the socially constructed norms, and gender is therefore not something we are, but rather something we do on a daily basis.   

 Butler’s contributions to feminist theory are significantly linked with those of Michel Foucault, as well as many others such as Simone de Beauvoir and Jacques Derrida. She is currently the Hannah Arendt Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School in Switzerland, where she lectures specific summer school courses.

Women In The News

NYTECH: Women Leaders in Tech – Blocking and Tackling #NYTC

May 4, 2012 at 10:27 am

 

By Lauren Keyson

The four panelists at NYTECH’s event earlier this week at Citrin Cooperman in Midtown talked about what it’s like to be a successful woman technology entrepreneur in NY.  They recognized that it had long been a boy’s club, but according to new studies, NY has attracted more women tech entrepreneurs than California and Boston in the last decade.

Donn Morrill, director of NY Technology Council starts a new job next week at Amazon Web Services, but said that spotlighting diversity had been a long time coming in the organization.  “We felt our audience was skewed very male – so this is our pilot track.  The men will take away that the industry is more diverse than they might otherwise see. There are a lot of women here tonight and a lot of other people that you would not normally see at a technology-focused event.”

Peggy Wallace, Managing Director of Golden Seeds, was the only investor sitting on the panel. She echoed the need for more women in the startup space. “Last year angel investors were 12% female and 2.4% of funding went to companies with a female in a C-level position.  Women hold 16% of public board seats. We still have a long way to go. Really all we want is half of everything,” she added with a smile.  Her advice to female founders, “Be courageous, learn about raising money, learn the process and get smart about things before you rush into them.”

On the other hand, other panelists seemed less cautious. Veronika Sonsev, co-founder of Women Innovate Mobile, a company that powers social commerce marketing technology for retailers said:  “I always say, ‘just do it!’ — if it’s something you are passionate about, then do it! Make sure you’re prepared to do it; set yourself up in advance financially and with the right mentors and skill set.  Founders and non-founders is just a mind set.” But she did agree that woman need to have courage. “Failure is not something to be afraid of,” she added.  “I always say ‘if you haven’t failed you haven’t tried hard enough’ — it’s important to push the envelope with what you can do.”

Yin Yin Chan, co-founder of OnePager, gave advice about partners and process.  Her company, which works to make websitebuilding easier for businesses, has four founders in her company.  “I think that it’s a very beneficial thing to have multiple co-founders — not necessarily four — but have more than you.  Always reach out to other people for advice — it’s helpful to get feedback from your customers, especially if you’re a B to C type of business. Always iterate your product – I can’t even guess how many times we have iterated OnePager – maybe about 20 or 30 times.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean we changed the product around; it might just be that we enhanced or removed the feature.”

Panelist Nina Sodhi, founder of BluTrumpet mobile advertising, is currently on her seventh startup.  “Women are a little shy about embracing just their own personality.  That might be that they’re more detail oriented or engaging and nurturing.  But whatever their personalities, they should find out who they are and what makes them stronger. Too many women try to be something they’re not and then they end up weakening themselves. We think as  leaders is that we have to take charge and tell people what to do, but really a leader should be listening to what’s going on, making fast decisions, and then communicating that concisely. Bring all that together and you are probably learning 60% of the time and thinking and talking the other 40%.”

Wallace’s take on women as leaders: “A lot of what leaders do is about process. You have to build a company that allows people that are very different from you – you can’t always hire people just like you. You have to hire people at all levels and build an organization that allows them to work at their highest potential.  A lot of running a business is really boring – blocking and tackling.  But the greatest leaders I know are obsessed with process. If something is not working, you have to fix it. If someone is not at their potential, it’s your leadership’s failure.”

Inspiration Of Motherhood

Reported by: Emily Clark 

Kaysville moms working to create safe walking route to school

 

KAYSVILLE, Utah (ABC 4 News) – A group of local moms with an unusual way to make their kids walk to school safe. Right now the kids walk on a road without a sidewalk, but these moms are working to fix that.

Angels street is busy, made even more congested by two new schools in the neighborhood. Snow Horse Elementary opened a few years ago and Centennial Junior High School is in its first year.

Sara Thatcher has children at both schools and she drives them due to the sketchy route, “There is no safe route for my kids because angel’s street is very narrow.”

Having no sidewalk is a side effect of Kaysville’s growth.

Kaysville’s Mayor Steve Hiatt told ABC4, “There is no new development and its created a hazardous situation for people who have lived there.”

When the homes along Angels Street were originally built, they didn’t have to put in a sidewalk. Without them, nearly 300 kids have to be bused to school. That costs the school district $58,000 every year.

Melanie Bingham, another mom working for a sidewalk, pointed out what that money could be spent on, “$58,000 could pay for an additional teacher, could pay for textbooks it could pay for supplies.”

 

ABC4 wanted to know, who is responsible for the sidewalks this street so desperately needs?

 

We talked to everyone involved and the answer was surprising. The school district isn’t responsible. Kaysville City isn’t either. The responsibility rests on the individual homeowners.

Thatcher raised a concern with that, “To go to a homeowner and ask them to fork out money for these sidewalks – most homeowners don’t have that money to do, so it’s a community project”.

A community project, with a compromise. The city a nd the group of mom’s looking for safety will split the cost, $31,000 from the community and another $31,000 from Kaysville City.

Raising the money comes in a very interesting and definitely creative way. They are holding what they call a “Poop-a-Palooza!” People can buy spots on a field, if a horse “does his business” near your spot you win $500. If the horse gets a bit of stage fright and doesn’t “relieve himself” everyone who bought a spot will go into a bucket and a winner will be drawn.

There will also be a big party to celebrate the schools and raise the money needed to make the walk to school for Snow Horse and Centennial kids safe.