by Ryan Nix
On a cold, rainy day in November, women from all around the globe met at the Clinton Center in Little Rock for the World Woman Foundation’s annual summit, the World Woman Conference. This year, the WWF focused on redefining rules for women, putting forth multifaceted strategies to help uplift women around the world. “We believe that equality for women is progress for all,” says Rupa Dash, CEO of the World Women Foundation, “Our goal for this summit is to turn women’s ambitions into reality, understand their purpose, reimagine their communities and rise to their highest potential while lifting others along the way.”
Opening the summit was Gloria Feldt, bestselling author and president of Take the Lead. Setting the tone for the next two days, Feldt outlined her organization’s plans to instigate complete gender parity among leadership positions by 2025. “We want to pave a path to a better world, where women and men equally share in power, position and pay,” says Feldt, who chronicled her path from teenage motherhood to becoming the president of Planned Parenthood.
“As women, we can’t overstate the importance of being intentional,” says Feldt, “And to be intentional, we must understand the three aspects of intention: having a vision, being courageous, and taking action.” Feldt exhorted attendees to carry the suffragettes’ torch. “The challenge of the 20th Century was changing laws and opening doors for women. Our challenge in the 21st Century is to join hands with men who share our values and walk through those opened doors,” Feldt says. “Don’t keep calm and carry on; be bold and carry out. Power unused is power useless.”
These efforts have begun bearing fruit in the United States. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, four out of every 10 American businesses are owned by women, constituting 12.3 million separate firms, and over the past 12 years the number of women-owned businesses has increased by 58 percent. This blossoming of female entrepreneurship has also been intersectional; of the nearly 665,000 women-owned businesses that were launched in 2018, 64 percent were founded by women of color.
Despite these gains, many women frequently face challenges in the workforce that most men aren’t even aware of, Feldt says. Women are increasingly entering male-dominated fields, and the anxiety of navigating those industries often leads to some women hanging back and not leading initiatives. Speakers at the World Woman Summit addressed this crisis of confidence with a negotiation workshop. “It’s okay to not feel brilliant or even 100 percent confident in yourself,” says Andrea Phua, Economic Counsellor at the Singapore Embassy. Phua also served as the deputy chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. “Don’t let just feeling 10 percent confident hold you back, when men can feel 2 percent confident and jump right in.”
Hugely important to female empowerment is advertising that it can be done, that anyone can realize his or her potential, regardless of gender.
The schedule included headliners, panel discussions, one-on-one interviews, fireside chats and workshops. The purpose of this year’s theme, “Women #RedefineRules for a Better Future and Better Economy,” was to inspire women to take leadership in ending some of the world’s biggest challenges. That includes everything from ending hunger to developing technology.
Opening remarks were delivered by three dynamic women. One of them was Sherece West-Scantlebury, CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, who is considered a leading voice on the eradication of global poverty and honorary chair of this year’s summit. Another opener, Nydia Han, is an Emmy Award-winning journalist known to many as the consumer investigative reporter for WPVI-TV in Philadelphia. She also is the producer of the documentary series, #ThisisAmerica.
Dash shared her inspiring challenge to make a significant change in the world within the next decade. Her goal is for the foundation to mentor 1 million women by 2030 as a step toward empowering ordinary women to do extraordinary things.
Dash is connected to Arkansas through UA Little Rock, where she received an MBA. Why launch such a conference in Little Rock as opposed to Los Angeles, where she’s based? “The heart of America should be a place such as Arkansas,” she tells Arkansas Money & Politics. “We can cause a ripple effect that will go across the country and across the world.”
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