In a startup economy of
self-described “boss babes,” Ashley Sumner wants to be known in simpler terms.
While on a run near her home in the
Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles in early March, Sumner was thinking about
identity and the peppy phrases that female professionals use to describe
themselves online: “girl bosses” and the like.
اضافة اعلان
“I worry about the negative impact
of that,” Sumner, 32, said. “I worry that it allows investors to see founders
who are women as a separate class from the rest of the founders. I worry it
allows investors to write women founders smaller checks. I do believe that
women need to help inspire other women but also that identity can be used as
labels to separate us.”
Sumner is the chief executive
officer of Quilt, an audio platform for conversations about self-care topics
like wellness in the workplace, PTSD and astrology. (In prepandemic days, the
company organized work gatherings and group discussions in people’s homes.)
She has felt marginalized in the
woman section of founders’ circles. “I am always asked to speak on the female
founders panel,” Sumner said. “I want to be asked to speak on the panel.”
Since she is in the discussion
business, she wondered if she could start one with the central question. “When
is labeling in support and celebration of furthering our mission of equality
successful and when is it ‘othering’ and hurting our mission?”
She ran home, sat sweatily at her
computer, banged out a few words and overlaid them on a photograph of herself.
“I am a female founder,” she typed, then dramatically crossing out the word
“female” and adding a caption that read in part: “putting my gender in front of
what I am belittles what I’ve accomplished.”
Sumner isn’t particularly active on
Instagram or Twitter. On LinkedIn, she had never done more than repost someone
else’s articles or musings. But given that platform’s focus on professional
life, she thought it was a reasonable place to first share her handiwork.
Sumner’s post has drawn nearly
20,000 comments, from men and women in the United States, Australia, Africa,
Latin America, India and beyond; from executives, construction workers, health
care employees, professors and military professionals.
After reading it, Kate Urekew, the
founder of Revel Experiences, a marketing firm in Boston, contacted three
successful business owners she knows to ask them what they think. Each said
there is not yet enough representation of women in leadership ranks to ignore
the gender disparities. “In order to change things and truly achieve parity,”
said Urekew, 50, “you need to have more visibility for other women.”
She added: “I love that she started
this discussion, it opened up my eyes to many more aspects.”
In something of a rarity for a viral
social media post, especially one about identity, the comments reflect a range
of perspectives and are mostly civil.
“That’s what we all need to hear,”
one man wrote. “Too much identity politics leads to confirmation bias.”
“I don’t feel we are there yet,” a
woman wrote. “We are still at a point where we are trying to get equal footing,
and that takes awareness, doesn’t it?”
“Succeeding in the business world
means you are accomplishing a great thing and in some cases outperforming a
male,” a man wrote.
More than 150 female founders posted
similar photos of themselves, crossing out the word “female,” and then shared
what was now credibly a meme on the internet.
Faryl Morse, 55, who owns the
footwear company Faryl Robin, was also moved to make her own post, listing the
social media lingo of “Boss Babe,” “WomEntrepreneur,” “Girl Boss” and
“Mompreneur.”
“Let’s please stop adding these cute
names to women who are ambitious and are going after their dreams with
persistence,” she wrote. “It is not empowering any woman.”
Morse wants other women to see her
success and know that they too can aspire to own and operate a thriving
business in a male-dominated industry, and she believes that being a woman
gives her a different and valuable perspective. “But I am not a woman founder,”
she said. “I am a founder. End of conversation. Gender should not be
descriptive in the world we live in today. It doesn’t define me
professionally.”
Rayy Babalola, the founder of the
Agile Squad, a project management and consulting firm in Kent, England, was
captivated by the responses on LinkedIn but says that it’s not so easy for
everyone to drop the labels and forget the struggle and perseverance required
to find professional success.
Babalola, 30, believes that to call
herself a Black woman business founder conveys that she has overcome the dual
obstacles of sexism and racism. And she feels a responsibility to signal to
other Black women that they too can have a path to business ownership.
“Being a Black woman has affected
how I have been treated, and that has pushed me to become a founder,” she said.
“And you can’t be selfish,” she said. “Just because you found a way doesn’t
mean that it’s OK, now you can be silent.”
She thinks identifiers like “female
founder” and “Black-owned business” are still important. “Until those terms
stop rattling minds,” she said, they need to be used to remind the world that
they remain something of a novelty and in the minority.
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