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Women of Ambition

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by Alyssa Calder Hulme

5.0(16 reviews)

40 episodes

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The Women of Ambition Podcast is a place where we explore ambition - first, the radical act of acknowledging it within ourselves, second allowing space to explore what ambition means for each of us, and third moving forward with intention. Host Alyssa Calder Hulme navigates stories of women accepting and thriving in their ambition through guest interviews and reflections.

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2/24/2021

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February 23, 2024

TOO AMBITIOUS: Challenging the Status Quo + Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez

Welcome to the women of ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Calder Hume. And today we are going to look specifically at ambition for women as per normal, but we're going to be looking at it through the lens of culture and how religion and socialization and so many other factors come into play for women and how we are socialized to be able to exhibit or not exhibit ambition. And today my guest is Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez, who is a fantastic journalist. Uh, Reporter. I don't know. How would you summarize what you do, Stephanie? I'll let you introduce yourself. Hi, thanks for having me here. And yeah, I feel bad because every time somebody asks my husband what I do, he has like the same very difficult task to summarize all of the different things. But basically, yeah, I'm a writer. I cover women, money, power, and ambition. And I've written in like the traditional journalistic. Fear. I hosted a money podcast for real simple magazine called the money confidential podcast. And I also have my own newsletter [00:01:00] called too ambitious, where I D dive deeper into the data around women and ambition, which is really what I do a lot on my Instagram, where I'm most active at Stephanie O'Connell. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, that is your Instagram is fantastic. I first saw it several months ago and I admit I was very jealous like immediately because I was like she is doing exactly what I want to do she's sharing the exact studies that I'm looking at she's doing it in such an efficient way like you make it so accessible which is hard because like we're talking about like social science literature that you're sharing Yes, it is very hard. I want everyone to know that as you think I sound really eloquent on Instagram, I promise you behind the scenes, it's hours, days, Google Docs upon Google Docs of deep research, not to mention the fact that I film forever. And I edit these videos, as you'll see on the podcast here, I have a tendency to be very rambly [00:02:00] because all these ideas are very interconnected. And one thing makes me think of another thing. And these are really complex things. One thing about Instagram that's cool is because you have only 90 seconds, you can only tackle one idea at a time. And that's a really powerful mechanism for getting to the heart of the point. I think that's why these messages have really resonated. Yeah. And you do it really, really well. Even, even just the, I think you said it's the name of your, uh, your newsletter, Too Ambitious. That is a phrase that comes up over and over and over again in the literature, even in non English speaking areas, which I think is so funny. Like even people who speak completely different languages are still using that phrase and they're Especially for women. Oh, she's too ambitious. She's more than me. I'm unattracted to her. I can't be her friend. It's really incredible. The consistency there is there. Yeah. It's almost mute. It's almost exclusively women who that phrase is applied to. What does it mean to be too [00:03:00] ambitious as a man? This is always, it's called the flip test, right? And you say this for another gender identity. Almost everything you say about women, like it's a red flag to be like, Oh, wow, saying this about a man would be ridiculous. There's no such thing. So, yeah, I think what inspired me with too ambitious to, to really claim that branding was not just the idea of always having felt Yeah. Thanks. Too ambitious for many of the people and interactions I've had in my life and having my ambition framed as a bad thing when my entire childhood, I was told it was a good thing, but also it was around the time of the last election and Kamala Harris was. Was, uh, being criticized for being too ambitious and, and that her ambition was considered disqualifying as a reason for her not to be considered a vice presidential nominee. And if there is anything that you need to run for political office, it is an [00:04:00] exclusive willingness to say, I want this thing. And yet we penalize women for saying, I want this thing. And that is the impossible catch 22 that informs my work. It's really interesting. I've been looking at the trends and trying to figure out like, why is ambition starting to become something that we're looking at as social scientists, in journalism, in media, especially like in feminist spaces. And I really do think it is connected to politics, especially like with Hillary Clinton, like that really, that really. And it's, it's just continued to go up. So I'm high profile, right? Anytime you get women entering spaces where they're challenging the status quo and the challenge and the status quo, it has been very largely white, straight, cisgender men for a very long time. And there really isn't. Much that's changed in leadership, the numbers of women's representation in politics or in [00:05:00] business are still very, very low. Actually, it hasn't changed much my entire lifetime, but because these are very high profile examples, it has become this kind of wedge issue and a way to kind of create this vilification of anything women do in previously male dominated. spaces such that there's no right way for them to be in that space and to criticize them into submission. It's, I mean, we can't do anything right, basically, in those spaces. And that's the framework that I want to take here is like, you are not the problem. The problem is the structure. And so I'm really excited to have you on today because I know that you get that and we can speak about that. And I've had so many conversations with women specifically who don't understand what they're up against or they feel it, but it's under the surface. And so they can't. See the gender bias. They can't see the misogyny. They can't see [00:06:00] the structural inequities that are inherent there. So I'm, I'm really excited to dig into that. Uh, so to the start, do you consider yourself to be ambitious? Yes, very much. So my whole life I've identified as ambitious and I still do. I know. Identifying as ambitious these days, not just for the gendered reasons, but just for, uh, the true criticism of capitalism has become less and less in fashion. And I get it. Like I understand why there's a lot of pushback against this idea of ambition, but I also think that's predicated on a misrepresentation of ambition. Um, and this conflation of ambition with hustle culture and productivity culture, I really don't think ambition isn't about. Any kind of corporate ladder exclusively. I don't think it's about an amount of hours worked or about a certain kind of productivity at all. I think for me, it's to be seen and valued for the things I see in value in myself. And [00:07:00] oftentimes that ambition has only been allowed to thrive for women in relationship to other people, as a wife, as a mother, de centering the self. And to be able to have ambition that is your own. Independently in the same way men have been able to have their ambitions independently is at the crux, I believe, of the crisis of ambition that I think sometimes gets overlooked when we, when we talk about the, the real criticisms of capitalism, which are fair, but this idea that somehow women just, this is only an issue for women and they're the ones who are disproportionately being marginalized from their own ambition to me. That's. Yeah. The fault of capitalism and patriarchy. This is not some kind of, um, I think, I think the flip side of the same coin is what I'm saying. Like ambition has been kind of cast as the villain. And I don't think that's the villain. The villain is that what it means to succeed is to be ambitious and [00:08:00] only this very narrow way that has been reserved for white men. Yeah. Thank you. That's like. That's like my whole goal here is to really complicate that idea of that ambition is climbing the corporate ladder. You have to be an asshole to do it. You have to climb on people to do it. It's about these outward markers of achievement and it's it's really not because Especially for women, because we haven't been socialized to be able to step into other spaces. And because we just hold so many roles in places that we exist in, like ambitious, like manifestation of ambition can be rest. It can be healing. It can be relationships. It can be doing lots of things. It can be so many things beyond those like capitalistic ideals. And I do come across that a lot in saying that word ambition to people because they're like, Oh, you're like this American who's like, You know, focused on these things, and it's like, actually, I see this as a personality trait that's [00:09:00] so much bigger, and then there's this socializing aspect to it, and there's this gendered aspect to it, and I think this is like, this is the scenario I tell people. It's like, okay, consider, um, like a pair, uh, some parents, and they're talking about their son, their daughter's new, Beyonce and they say, Oh, he's really ambitious. Everyone's like, Oh, that's awesome. Like, great. He's ambitious. Now consider if they're talking about their new daughter in law. Oh, she's really ambitious. Like that doesn't hold the same excitement or weight. It's like an asterisk. Like, Oh. So she doesn't want a family. Oh, like it implies so many things and it's like, Oh, it makes me itchy. Like I want to dig into that. Yeah. It's just such a negative connotation. And this is like the flip test. You can say the exact same phrase, but depending on who it's applied to, somehow it goes from being a positive to a negative. And that's the thing that I want to confront to your point, not. Like, I don't know [00:10:00] everything else. Sometimes I think some, the conversation gets so tried sidetracked by all of these different threads, but I really want to come back to this fundamental paradox of like, there is no right way to be an ambitious women in our world. And that's not fair. Mm hmm. Thank you. Okay, so now let's, let's go back to your childhood. Where do you see this, like, part of yourself exhibiting? And then what were your, like, your, your adult figures in your life, your socialization? Was this something that was nurtured? Was there shame involved? Tell us about that. I was always ambitious and unapologetically. So for a very, very long time, partly because I grew up in a house where my mom made more than my dad, both my parents worked full time. My mom made more than my dad. She was the decision maker about all things. And so for me, that was the way the world worked. And it was a rude awakening to become an adult. I will say. How nice. Honestly, like, I'm sorry that that was a rude [00:11:00] awakening, but how wonderful to be raised in a home with a strong female role model. Yes, it was nice, but I will say, I think even for a woman who did not have that experience, uh, it was also part of the zeitgeist of my childhood. I was born in the 80s, so my childhood was very 90s. Girl power. It was really defined by limited anthems of the spice girls and the stickers of like girls rule. And I was a gymnast. So there's like all the thing of like, I can do what boys can do. And that was the metric, right? I can do what boys can do. And. Why? Why is that the metric? Um, yes, I want to be able to do the same behavior without being penalized for things that boys are rewarded for. But like, there's a lot of things boys do, like their model of leadership that I'm not looking to emulate. And I don't think that's the ultimate goal, but I think all of these things of [00:12:00] the zeitgeist and the culture and the discourse around girl power that I was exposed to not only in my own home, but growing up culturally. At least, you know, in the United States, middle class, you know, very privileged life that I had was just totally failed to acknowledge the fact that none of these things that I was being told we're going to be rewarded when I actually put them into practice. And I think that's what freaked me out about becoming an adult was suddenly that. Everything I had been told to do to get the things I wanted and be competent and speak up and ask for more and demand what I deserve. All of that stuff. When you do it as a fully grown, independent adult women, you're far more likely to get backlash and be penalized for doing those very things that you've been told your whole life. Are the things you need to do to be as successful as your male colleagues. And yeah, I do think [00:13:00] those things are important, but this idea that. It was something that we could change through our behaviors as women, as opposed to simply interrogating the spaces and the workplaces and the structures and the policies and the relationships and the families and the culture that look at a woman who asks for more money and says, who is she to do this? And when the same thing is being told of a man of look at what a powerful bold leader he is, that's the stuff. Where that energy really needed to be and still needs to be and I think my disillusionment is something I've seen among many of my colleagues. What I have found consistently is like I'm in my late thirties now and My whole generation of girls who were raised in the era of girl power are coming into what is our peak earnings years, and we're pretty much [00:14:00] no better off than than the women who were our age when we were born, and that's pretty. Depressing. And I think a lot of that is because we've allowed this discourse to continue around ads, the next generation, or it's the, the behaviors of girls that are women that need to be modified when really it's the way that behavior is responded to in these systems that needs to be modified. Yeah, I think that's another interesting kind of twist on that American idealism where we. want to think of ourselves as independent agents that are in control of our future and can change things. Well, if I just say it in the best way, if I just manage this, I can take care of it. And I mean, I'm, I'm a similar age group to you and I'm, I'm the oldest girl of three girls. And so that's like even more heightened as like the oldest child is like, well, I can just manage this and get what I want. And then there is that disillusionment. There is that, that dissonance [00:15:00] and. In sociology, we call it, um, animy. It's that feeling of being socially deviant and being other, of not presenting in a way that is what people expect of us and being othered. And it, it's so confusing. It is. So thank you for speaking to that. One of the things people will often say in response to my videos about this will be like, well, you should just not care. You should just not care what other people think. And that is so disingenuous. First of all, it's just once again blaming women for their own oppression. But it's also, that's not how humanity works. Everything we do, as you know, is like about belonging and meaning and identity. And these social sanctions that are being put on only one group of people is like, The idea that we justify that or simply dismiss it as like, well, you should just [00:16:00] not care is not only like against humanity and the idea of community and belonging, but it's just like so disingenuous and gross. Like the fact that we're willing to accept and justify and purpose. That's what I think of when I hear stuff like that. It's like, oh, we want to excuse this behavior and allow it to continue rather than confront it and change the accountability mechanism. And that comes up so often in these conversations, whether it's about like just telling women more stuff they should be doing differently, or whether it's about perpetuating some of the myths that reinforce these unequal outcomes time and time again. Okay. So as we, as we dig into this a little bit deeper, um, tell us about those moments of that, like, That dissonance, that like shock that it's not working out. What, how has that marked your career path? How has that marked your personal path? Um, different [00:17:00] areas of your life. And then how have you handled those like shocking moments or, you know, the dissonance, I think the greatest moment of dissonance for me was when I got engaged, which was later in my life. I was already in my mid thirties by the time I got married. And what happened was this just. outpouring of love and celebration and support. And it was totally wild to me because I had never felt that in my entire career. When I started a business, when I wrote a book, when I did these really big things that really meant a lot to me and I really needed support for. And then there was just like this total shocking out. of community and love and what can I do to help? Nobody asked me what they could do to help me. Like when I'm starting a business, they look at you starting a business. They're like, [00:18:00] okay, good luck with that. I roll, right? You're too big for your britches. Like, I guess I wasn't totally surprised because basically my entire twenties people just wanted to know who I was dating and nobody ever asked me about my goals or what I was working on or what I was excited about. But I think the just total disproportionate scale of that love and support around getting married, which for me was like not a life goal. It's just something that I love being married. I think it's wonderful. Not against it, but I think it just really upset me, the dissonance of like, I cannot believe how, how much of a different experience this is. And I think this is another way that sexism manifests in a way that is Benevolent. It's not a bad thing. It's not a malicious thing. The extent to which we don't show up for [00:19:00] people and for women's particularly when it comes to celebrating their ambitions and their things that they're working towards that they say they want for themselves versus these very Narrow ideas of what it means to be a good woman. Like the outside support you get for announcing an engagement or a pregnancy compared to material support for the lived experiences of your own ambitions, that's sexism. And I think I know it doesn't get framed that way, but I think we should be able to say that that's what it is because it's all this is about systems of incentives and disincentives. And when you're incentivizing women to become wives and mothers above all else. And you are disincentivizing them from pursuing their own ambitions by not providing support, by not celebrating or acknowledging or asking how you can help. That is the same mechanism that causes people to be able to lean into [00:20:00] something or lean away from it. I definitely see that. And it's been interesting because my own life path has looked very. Uh, gender role traditional, I got married young, I had kids young, I stayed at home with them, or at least it appeared that way. And now I'm in my mid thirties and I'm going to grad school and we're moving our family across country for my education. I am about to earn a lot of money and work outside the home and there, people are just baffled. They're just very, very confused as to why. I would do this because obviously I had it all. So why would I, why would I want something different? And then because my life looked a certain way, they're assumed my values and my goals were oriented to a certain direction. And this has always been the plan. It's always been the plan for me and my husband. We always knew this was going to be how it is, but everyone else is just, they [00:21:00] can't fathom it and they don't know how to ask questions. They're like, Oh, that's great. You got into a good school, but like, what would you do with that? And I'm like. Right, this is, again, this is the flip test, right? Nobody would say this to your spouse. Nobody would not it would be there would be zero questions. Why would you want to get a higher education at a at a world class school? I don't understand. Yes. Yeah, it's that's sexism. Right? And I think it's really easy to dismiss these things as I it's not such a big deal. You know, this is stakes aren't that high, but I think what I'm trying to get at in the work I do in the videos and the research I get into is really quantifying the effects of all of these single not so big deal things, right? A little discrimination here, a little bias there, a little less support there, a little more support here, but over time. What happens is this becomes a daily experience and when it becomes a daily experience, it compounds. And over the [00:22:00] course of a lifetime, not only is this incredibly expensive to women, you know, you need to look at pay gaps over the course of a career. Oh, you know, it's really small when you start out and then it gets. Bigger in your thirties. It's for narrows again. Over the course of a career, we're looking at over a million dollars. And the fact that women are oftentimes the primary providers for their entire families is it's unconscionable to me that that this isn't more of a headline story every day. Um, so I think importantly, the, the quantifying is Thanks. Just really showcases the stakes of these things that we often minimize or diminish, or we write off. I also think it's important to acknowledge the ways in which the everyday experience of these things disenfranchises women from their own ambitions. Yeah. Because it makes it like, quote unquote, not worth it, right? It's if every day is a fight. If every time you act on the thing you want to [00:23:00] do. You're just met with resistance and questioning and backlash instead of celebration and support like I was talking about with my wedding that does change your relationship to your own ambitions. I think we don't really talk about that enough because ambition isn't static, it is either nurtured, or it is harmed and women are being disproportionately harmed having their ambition harmed. And I think. Back to our conversation earlier about this like anti ambition movement, I think we're often misdiagnosing where this is coming from. This isn't something, you know, women wake up 30, 35 one day and say, I'm not ambitious anymore. No, that is the result of a collective harm that has been done to them. Well, and like I read a. I think the Harvard Business Review article about this where the top executives, the top companies and consultants can quantify this and can show that companies and specifically looking at companies, but it goes across any [00:24:00] social group that ambition can be nurtured or it can be harmed. And we know how, how this happens. We know. Where we can do like what we can do to fix it and yet it's not being done and we keep telling women it's their individual choices that are harming them and then assuming that they must, it must be because they're mothers and they have too many other priorities, they're not focused and so this is where, this is where some of my research comes in where the sociological literature on ambition has been measuring ambition Without regard to gender for the most part, and it's been using what are called agentic metrics. And so they're looking at your socioeconomic status. They're looking at what kind of position do you have in your company that you're working at? How much educational attainment have you achieved? And. Not looking at women's socialized spaces and roles, the places where we have been allowed to grow and to flex and be ambitious. And then also not [00:25:00] taking into account how we are disenfranchised when we do step into those predominantly male socialized realms. And then we say, Oh, women are ambitious, but it's because our framework of what ambition is and how we're looking at and how we're measuring it is completely biased. Yeah, and I think one of the clearest examples of this is when you look at unpaid work or volunteer work, like the amount of really powerhouse effort that goes into creating structures for schools, school fundraising, for example, or any kind of activity. Um, where women have been allowed to your point to participate and to act on their ambitions or the nonprofit spaces, anything that's in the, in the non paid space, because it's not a, a threat to the status quo, right? Where men hold financial power, you just. Don't see any evidence that there's some kind of a lack of ambition. What you see is an environment where [00:26:00] women have been allowed to express their ambition without the constant penalties and where they're going to be surrounded by other people and encouraged and rewarded. So that's why I'm always coming back. Okay. What are the incentives? What are the rewards and what are the disincentives? And if those are being applied differently to different people based on gender identity, and of course, this is true across other metrics too. Then, then you have differential outcomes. And that's why I think anytime we see a difference in gender outcomes, we have to look, we have to think back to, okay, what are the incentives and disincentives? And I look at this for men with a paternity leave, for example, right? This hurts men too. If the incentives are for men to be in the paid workspace above all else, then they are going to be penalized when they prioritize family obligations, like taking paternity leave. So I think this, everything is not about these individual dynamics to your point. And it's not [00:27:00] ever about a singular interaction. It's about what we reward and what we punish and for whom. Yes, thank you. I, I completely agree. Um, I'm, I'm curious to see how that changes over time because we've seen changes in, um, social expectations on education where now women are, I think, outpacing men in terms of achieving, um, college graduation and, and, advanced degrees. Um, and so we haven't been seeing a lot of the, the shared work home life workload, uh, between heterosexual couples, um, especially and even as women enter the workforce. But I wonder as men take on more of those roles and publicly lean into those communal spaces, I do wonder how it will shift, but it is certainly taking freaking forever. And in the meantime, We're still being punished. We're still being hurt for this. It's still [00:28:00] damaging women and it just continues to create those like binary spaces where we're allowed to be and make women and non binary people and anyone who doesn't conform just completely illegible and invisible. In these spaces. So how are we in the world? Are we going to support them if we can't even see them or talk to them or understand them? Totally. Like the, the idea of a binary and rigidity is really harming everybody as you, as we've been talking about. And what's been interesting is. As people's economic circumstances have increasingly required to incomes to make a household function for most people who are not upper middle class, uh, there has been more leniency and allowing women to enter a paid spaces, right? Women are now increasingly expected to partake in the workplace. And so you see women being allowed to operate. in part in some spaces with feminine qualities and [00:29:00] masculine qualities, but you don't really see as much acceptance. With men being allowed to express the feminine, and this is a problem. This is because you don't get, yeah, right now you have, okay. You can go have a job if you're a woman, but it has to be a certain kind of job, right? You can't be, you can't, you can't be making more than your partner. God forbid, you know, anything like that. Don't have a spouse. Then you're allowed to, because you have to, right? If you're married, you don't have to. So you shouldn't. Um, but to this idea of like, you know, women are really operating. Across these stereotyped traits, the masculine and the feminine, and yeah, they face backlash in some of those masculine traits, but the amount of men backlash men face for really engaging in anything feminized is really bad. It's almost less, there's almost less flexibility there for what men are allowed to engage in without having social sanctions and stigma.[00:30:00] And that, again, hurts everybody because of men. Are not allowed to lean into caretaking and household labor and being the parent who shows up for the PTA instead of mom, right? Then we're going to have a situation where this dynamic that women are doing everything and are totally burnt out and disenfranchised with from their ambitions is going to continue. I completely agree. So I'm wondering, you've seen these trends, you report on these trends, you're talking to lots of people about this just like I am. What is the, what's on your to do list? What's the takeaway? What should we be doing differently? Do we even have enough information to make those kinds of recommendations? And who, who do we make those recommendations to? Yeah. So my focus in my work is almost never about what women should do because I think the constant constant Focus on women's individual behavior and how it's [00:31:00] too much or too little of something has really just tied us all up in a bunch of knots that doesn't matter how much, which way we lean, there's going to be a reason why that's not good enough. And so, yeah, I always. Think best practices for human beings, uh, being good and kind and operating in a way in the world that we want to see more of is great, but I really don't try, I don't really do checklists for, okay, women should do X, Y, and Z. But what I try to do instead is talk about all of these things as we've been talking about through these frameworks of why is. This phenomenon happen happening and challenging what's often the go to assumptions and explanations that people point to what I do see happening is that there is a real lack of accountability around this gender inequality. And I think. It's something that might surprise people to [00:32:00] hear because you hear people talk about like pay gaps and leadership gaps and discrimination against mothers talking about that for years and it's still there, but it's justified. It's so often justified and explained away with either false assumptions or sexism just disguised as some kind of like biological difference, which is just not predicated on truth. And I, that's what, why I do what I do because. Until we confront that this is actually just more sexism and not that women and men simply have different preferences. So the more we really confront these narratives that have been used to explain, quote unquote, gender inequality and hold people accountable for unequal outcomes instead of allowing them to dismiss or diminish or justify. I think that is first and foremost, the number one thing. And I think we haven't done that. We really haven't done that. I, I, [00:33:00] it's shocking to me, the amount of inequality. Quality we are comfortable with, and that is now just part of the mainstream discourse in a way where it's assumed these gender differences are assumed that it, that are oftentimes simply not even true. So that's where I really start my work. And then I like to look at where is stuff working, where is stuff working differently? If I look at research about homes where fathers were more active in the housework, I see that sons are also more likely to be active in the housework. So I'm not saying, okay. Here's the checklist of five things we need to do differently. I want to look at the data and say, the data is showing that when these elements are in place, we see more of this outcome that enables more equality. So how can we create systems that allow us to engage in life in that way, if that makes sense? Yeah. So it sounds like you are, you're pointing out the larger phenomena. You're starting a [00:34:00] discourse about it. You're calling it out in In public spaces and trying to, like, take the next step in that evolution of, of a cultural shift on a larger scale and doing it through reaching the public instead of individual people, certainly not like a five, five top ways to be an ambitious woman. Like, that's so like, I know magazine culture, isn't it? But it's great for SEOs. But I don't do it. It is. And there's There's a real stickiness to this approach like it's really hard you'll hear me now as I'm trying to parse out all of the pieces of it. I can't just say like, Oh, the issue is XYZ that you solve with XYZ. These are very complicated dynamics because they're not just about behaviors. They're about culture identities. science, misperceptions, uh, you know, why things work the way they do psychology, why human behavior works the way it does. And I [00:35:00] think like those things that are sticky and complicated and gray are really hard to. To shift into like a single talking point the great thing about lean in as in terms of like a talking point no matter how like not true or true it is, is that like I know what it is in two words if I say lean in I know what that means. You know if I talk about fair play what it means to divide housework equally. It's a really click. quick, clear and concise takeaway. And what I'm trying to do is say, you know, not all of this is very clear and concise. This is about broader roles, a binary that we need to get rid of. It's about what cultures and societies value and for whom. And like, that's not super clear or sticky or catchy. Yes. I don't have a lot to say because I'm in a similar place where it's [00:36:00] like, we need to know this is happening and we need to like, like, we need to have a framework and it needs to change. And I don't know how yet. And that's why I'm doing the work I'm doing. But like, Something has to keep progressing, or, like, we have to be doing something differently, I don't know, but we can't just get used to this and drop the conversation. Well, what I will say is I have been really thrilled about how much this conversation, as I've been having it online, has really resonated with people. And the extent to which I get messages and comments from people that say, you know, I've always Felt this or experienced this, but I didn't have the language for it. And so I internalized it and I thought it was me and I thought it was doing something wrong And it really messed up my own relationship to myself and what I wanted And now i'm really understanding this as a broader dynamic that isn't just about me And it's really helping me get clarity about what I need to do and [00:37:00] that's exactly What I want to see more of right? It's not like a five step solution because it's going to be different for every person. But if you can have the broader framework to think about what you're experiencing and understanding it beyond the individual dynamics of just you and the person you're experiencing it with, I think it helps you process what's happening. Oh, that's definitely been my experience. And unpacking that part of shame that said this, like, I'm ambitious. I feel shame for being ambitious. Why? There's something wrong with me. And then being like, no, there's not something wrong with me. I don't fit into the system that has been built. And then I've been told I'm supposed to fit into, like, this box just doesn't work for me. I'm a big shiny star that's bouncing all around. I'm not going to fit in this box. Correct. And it's not a me problem, it's a you problem. I still have to deal with it. I still have to figure out how to survive life, but it's, it's not something that is [00:38:00] my fault. And it helps. It helps to have that mental shift. It really does help. Like, I've also, in addition to doing a lot of the research I've had, Done a lot of individual interviews with people who've been through these experiences, you know, people who've negotiated job offers have had the job offers withdrawn and then what that subsequently did to their own confidence and how that stayed with them through their careers or it made them change industries like there's real consequences. For internalizing these dynamics instead of understanding them as broader cultural forces. And what happened when we've had these conversations is people allow themselves to see those dynamics, and then they allow themselves to as to your point. Understand themselves within spaces that again, I keep coming back to this idea of like rewards and penalties or incentives and disincentives, like, but how can I identify the spaces where what [00:39:00] I am and am doing and want to be doing is celebrated and supported or the people or the communities. Cause like I to this day struggle with this, but I have found much better that there are certain people I speak to that I will always be weird to them for loving work and wanting to talk about those kinds of things and not only wanting to talk about, I don't know. My relationship, I guess. Um, but there are people who see me, you know, to be seen to be valued like that's a belonging meaning. These are the core experiences of what we're seeking as people in the world. Right. And so to find the people. Who see your ambitions and the things that you want for yourself and your independence and value them to have people value you for the things you value in yourself is truly special.[00:40:00] And I love having these conversations even now, even in this moment, it's, I'm rethinking the way that I engage with people when they. When they do hit milestones that maybe I don't personally value for myself, but they value for them. Like I can engage with them in a way that sees the world from their perspective or ask them, why is this so, like, why is it so great for you? I'm so excited. You're excited. Tell me more about it. And like getting on board with them. I think that even just that language shift. changes how I engage with people. And then also understanding that this is a larger issue of like sexism that we're like embedded in. Then I hold less judgment for the people who can't comprehend me because they've never been taught how to comprehend me. And so then I can just engage with everybody with a lot less. Emotional upheaval or realistic, like with realistic expectations, I think. So maybe that's the next intervention that we can work with. No, I think the realistic expectations is good. Like there's people in my [00:41:00] life that I don't expose myself to as often, or I don't expect the validation from them anymore. And that has been very good for me, you know, to, I know who I need to go to for. Certain things, and when it comes to my ambition, things I value about myself, like I, it's funny because the people who most see that in me are not people I grew up with, and they are not people I live near. So it's an active effort. It's an active effort that I have to cultivate those relationships, but the dividends of the. Have been enormous. Like I've really cultivated those relationships very strongly during COVID. And I came out of COVID with a completely different vision for my career and my life that is really being realized and taking off in the last couple of years. And it's one of the most satisfying things. If not the most satisfying thing that's ever happened to me. And that is [00:42:00] all a result of a real intentional approach to my community building and not just defaulting to the people I've known my whole life, because honestly, they don't get it. I love that. That is such a fantastic summary of my own experience, the whole point of starting this podcast was like I need to build community and I need to be able to have a reason to talk to people like you who I have no social or like physical location, like ability to access and create networks and be like, Oh, I'm not the only one. How do people do this? Yes. So thank you for, for summarizing that so well, I feel like that's a really great place to end on. Is there anything else that you want to share with us or say to ambitious women, or maybe what would you say to the structures that are holding us back? Who do you want to talk to? Oh man, I I, this is my problem is like, I have like a hundred million things that are going on in my brain right now, but I really just want everybody to be seen and valued for the things that they see and value in [00:43:00] themselves. And I think a lot of the times the world doesn't allow for that. And it constrains people in ways that they can't even connect to what they see and value in themselves anymore. They lose sight of it. And I think that's a real tragedy for. Everybody. This is oftentimes I'm framing this through what's happening to women. And I think that's important. And I think women do need to be centered more in these conversations. So I'm pretty unapologetic about doing that, but it's really important to understand the ways in which this actually hurts everybody. It hurts men, women, people across a gender identity. It hurts children. It hurts people who are older. And I think what we see consistently in the data is. You know, people do better when we don't constrict them to only one idea of what it is to be a good man or woman or human, right? Everyone's a, uh, full manifestation of themselves is unique, and so they need to [00:44:00] be given the space and the support to really live into that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing all of this with us today. Um, if anyone wants to follow you more or connect, I tell us about your Instagram, but any other, um, any other things you've got going on, if people want to work with you or hear more from you. Yeah. So I'm definitely most active on Instagram these days. I'm at Stephanie O'Connell is my handle. Uh, if you Google me, Stephanie O'Connell Rodriguez, you will find me. My newsletter is called too ambitious, where you can find a lot more of the deep dives into some of these topics we talked about today, but hopefully I'll see you on Instagram because it's mostly where I am every day. Awesome. Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you so much for your research and perpetuating this conversation. It's. It's picking up in spaces, but there are very few people that are looking at it from the frame of, like, from the context that you and I [00:45:00] both seem to be coming at it from, and it's wonderful to be able to talk to somebody who sees the trends and can speak to all of this, and we do have similar world views. I'm sure we have a lot of other things in common we haven't gone to, but thank you so much for being here and talking. This has been wonderful. Thank you for having me. All right. Bye.

February 16, 2024

(Different) Models of Leadership + Nina Simons, Bioneer Co-Founder

Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:00:00] Welcome to the women of ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Culler Hume. And today we have a fantastic guest on our show. Nina Simons is co founder and chief relationship officer at Bioneers and leads it's every woman leadership program throughout her career, spanning the nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and. Philanthropic sectors. Nina has worked with nearly a thousand diverse women leaders across disciplines, race, class, age, and orientation to create conditions for mutual learning, trust, and leadership development. She co edited Moonrise, The Power of Women Leading from the Heart and authored Nature, Culture, and the Sacred. A Woman Listens for Leadership, which is the book we're going to talk about here today, was released as a second edition in 2022 with an accompanying discussion guide and embodied. Practice. Nina received the Goy Peace Award with her husband and partner, Kenny Ausubel for pioneering work to promote nature inspired innovations for restoring the earth and our [00:01:00] human community, which is pretty incredible. So thank you so much for being here, Nina. Nina Simons: Thank you, Alyssa. It's great to be with you. Um, Alyssa Calder Hulme: this is your beautiful book. You can see it behind her if you're watching the video. Um, it's beautiful. This artwork is fantastic. Um, and I, I'll just start by saying that, you know, I, I get reached out to by a lot of PR teams and different people wanting me to promote the material. And, I'm really picky, but yours is the first one that I, I read and I really loved and am deciding to share it because, um, I think what your, your message here is, is really incredible. It's really holistic. And I think it's something that we really need to talk about. So thank you so much for, for me, for writing this book and publishing it. And. Talking about being like a feminist as a white woman who's trying to, um, decolonize perspectives, understand privilege, um, and also, [00:02:00] um, someone who's been in that space for so long. You have a lot of wisdom to share and a lot of experience. And I, I'm just really grateful that you're putting that out in the world and being vulnerable. So thank Nina Simons: you. Oh, it's my honor and privilege. I feel really grateful to get to do it. Thank you, Elisa. Okay, Alyssa Calder Hulme: so, I, so this book is about women's leadership, um, and you talk about it from your own personal experiences and then in working with other, with other leaders in, In lots of different communities, um, can we start maybe talking about, uh, what Bioneers is and where that word comes from, because I was really intrigued by that. Nina Simons: Sure. Sure. Well, the word was coined by my husband and partner because it's a contraction of biological pioneers. Okay. And the idea behind it was he started looking to find really innovative and effective [00:03:00] approaches. To healing our relationships with ourselves, each other and the earth and what he found was that some of the great innovators out there, many of them were looking to nature to heal nature and so there were nature sourced solutions and that's where the word Bioneers came from. But. Bioneers started as an annual gathering. Um, we started it in 1990 and over the years it has grown and grown and evolved tremendously so that now there is an annual face to face in person conference of about a year. 2500 or 3000 people, but there is also an incredible wealth of media that we put out. So we produce a radio series that wins awards many years and, um, a great newsletter and a lot of what motivated Bioneers in the first place was the recognition. [00:04:00] That the mainstream media tends to carry the bad news, but not the good news of the world. That's being born. And especially in this time when there's so much destruction and violence and coming apart, we all need to remember to give some of our time and energy to the world. That's being born because it's incredibly uplifting and inspiring and full of role models. And, and, um, that's what Pioneers is. And, um, what else did you ask me? I think that was the main question. No, Alyssa Calder Hulme: it, it was. Um, one of the things that you talk about in your book is the difference between a Bioneer and a Pioneer. And how as in the Bioneer space, you are looking to To create with the world instead of imagining it as a blank space that doesn't have, um, life already living and I don't know, I'm not articulating it very well. Your book says it so much more [00:05:00] beautifully, but, um, co creating in that world with indigenous people with local knowledge with local plants and flora and fauna and all of those things. You speak maybe a little bit. to that? And, and why is that a revolutionary concept to an American white person? Nina Simons: Oh, that's a great question. Well, and it's interesting as you frame it, it very much parallels my exploration with leadership because, um, what I've realized as a woman with all the privileges that having white skin gifts me in this country, um, and a fierce determination to become a better uh, anti racist, a better white ally, um, and to learn deeply what it means to do that. Um, part of what I've learned is that we actually need to invest in our own humility, and I think that's parallel to what you were asking because, um, [00:06:00] you know, Western civilization Tends to have us think of nature as resources and in fact an indigenous worldview thinks of nature as relatives And imagine how differently you would relate knowing that the trees and the Soil and the mycelium and the, you know, all of the elements are your relatives, rather than just resources to be mined or extracted or used. Um, so it really is about, you know, for me, what I've come to understand from all these years of immersing myself in both the challenges we face and. This amazing fount of solutions has been that, um, that the solutions we need are largely already in form all around us. And that what we need to do is quiet [00:07:00] our egos and our tendency toward hubris to learn from the allies that surround us. And that actually includes, um, people of different backgrounds. People of different classes and ages and orientations that I think a lot of what we're facing right now is a need to transform our culture by shifting our culture within ourselves first so that we relate to difference as a virtue rather than as an obstacle to be overcome. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, I, I love that in your book, you talk about a shift in culture and cultural change from a me to a we, and I, I really, I think that's such a succinct, fantastic way to, to talk about that. Um, and so I want to talk now about. In your book, you talk about leadership and being labeled as a leader and kind of your initial, um, being repulsed by that title and kind of your [00:08:00] transformation through that. So I would love to, I'd love to dig into that and then how your position and privilege as a leader has allowed you to exercise that humility and grow and learn with other people with maybe less privilege. Um, so, so talk to us a little bit about. Um, that stigma of leadership and, and maybe in conjunction with ambition, because I think it's a very similar stigma when a woman is trying or is in that place. Nina Simons: I do too. And it's been interesting to think about in relation to your podcast and recognize that, you know, social scientists have long observed that in our culture, when we raise boys, we raise them to crow when they achieve something. Whereas when we raise girls, we tell them not to crow, we tell them to be silent, to hold it to themselves. And really the models of virtue that [00:09:00] boys and girls are raised with are very, very different. And what I found When I was first called a leader, um, I was about 40 years old and I, I really didn't like it. I knew I was supposed to be flattered, but really I felt like it painted a target on my back. It was not a title I had ever aspired to. And. I knew from Bioneers that the earth is calling us all to be leaders now. And so I had to figure out how to reconcile those two things. And as I started convening women leaders, they would all come together immediately disavowing that they ever thought of themselves as leaders. So I found that it was a bigger issue than just me. And I think, you know, it relates to the, what you were just citing of the transition from a me culture to a weak culture, because really, um, I've done two books [00:10:00] now exploring leadership and how we are all co inventing and co creating new models of leadership. And, you know, I did that First, by exploring all of the talks from all of the leaders I most admired at Bioneers, and then deconstructing them to find patterns of how were they similar, and how were they different than my mental model, and, uh, and what I found was that they were all motivated from the heart, not the head. They were motivated by an internal passion to serve or defend or protect something. And not by a title or a graduate degree, um, they were often people who stepped up to do something when they didn't even know exactly what they could do. And it wasn't until they were in it that it began to reveal. And, And they [00:11:00] were, they were also people who, whose concept of leadership was involved sharing authority and sharing power. And so, you know, increasingly, I came to appreciate the Gloria Steinem thing of leaders are those who lift each, who lift others up. No, and, and as I explored that, I realized how important it was to both have your own sense of dignity and self love, but to have that balanced with humility so that you can recognize the gifts and talents and those around you and generously support them without feeling Threatened by the zero sum game of patriarchy that if someone else is good at something it means you're not so uh So I mean this latest book is sort of the latest Evolution of my thinking about leadership. It also talks about a lot of the [00:12:00] data about Women throughout the world and how their leadership is affecting change And, and how much, um, the research is proving that when women lead, everything gets better, you know, and so I think of the old model of leadership as an I model because it was driven by ego and personal achievement, you know, and, and I think of the new model that we're all co creating as a we model. Yeah, Alyssa Calder Hulme: I love that. And that, I mean, it blends so well into my research on ambition, um, in terms of, you know, when we're looking at gender roles where men are socialized to be individualistic and to be competitive and to be climbing and, um, are expected to be in those leadership positions, but from that ego place and from that, um, Stamp of approval of a title or, uh, income or [00:13:00] education or whatever it is. And now women are, are exercising in these places, but we're showing up in new ways and we're showing up with different gifts and with different values and priorities. And then when we're given the title of leader, it doesn't sit right, or it feels wrong. Um, And I, and, or ambition, I ask people to be on the show and they're like, Oh, I'm not ambitious. I'm like, well, let's talk about it. Cause I think you might be. And I think that maybe what you're scared of is actually some of the values that people have linked with those words that, that don't fit. Um, yeah, I love, I, one of the things I love about your book is that you talk and cite so many different. Women and groups and, uh, people from all over the world and talk about how their collaborative community based relational practices and different values are really starting to change the world and how the power of the [00:14:00] grassroots movements across the world and how they are. Are changing our society. Um, how as a leader, uh, with a platform, um, I know you've done a lot of work to create leadership spaces, uh, that account for differences in, um, Class and race and lots of different perspectives and places like that. What was it like to start engaging in some of that work to try and make your spaces more equitable and accessible to people who have been systematically disenfranchised? Nina Simons: Well, you know, there was a pivotal moment in my learning about that, Alyssa, when I read a book by a woman named Linda Tar Whalen called Women Lead the Way, and what she cites in that book is that until any minority Has reached at least 30 percent in a group, they [00:15:00] don't feel flanked enough to fully show up. And that was revelatory to me and my co facilitators. And at that moment, we agreed that we would set a minimum of 30 percent women of color in our trainings and that we would have a woman of color on our facilitation team. So that one third of the facilitation team was, was a person of color and everything shifted dramatically as soon as we did that. Um, You know, I think in a nutshell, it was in some ways scary to me to embark on that steep learning curve, but in other ways I felt really compelled to do it, and in retrospect, I feel really proud of myself that I embraced it so fully, and that in fact, I've reached a point in my life where I have Profound friendships and [00:16:00] relationships with women from all walks of life, and I feel like it's gifted me, you know, one of the things I think, Elisa, about this work is that people often talk about how hard it is, but they don't often talk about how rewarding it is. And I have found it to be some of the most rewarding work in my life. And it's gifted me some opportunities to experience in an embodied way what Dr. Martin Luther King called Beloved Community. And there's nothing like it, you know. It also helped me to understand Why the patriarchy has been so invested in socializing us to be in competition with each other rather than an alliance with each other. Because I think one of the most powerful things in the world is women in deep intentional alliance who can grow each other's leadership, [00:17:00] um, faster, better, deeper than anything else I've ever seen. So that's, that's some conditioning to get over. Yeah, Alyssa Calder Hulme: absolutely. I know so many white feminist women of my generation are trying to, uh, be allies and do anti racism work, and there is so much, so much work left to be done. And then, you know, at some point, there comes a time when it's time to start actually enacting some of those things we're learning, and I, it's scary to move from a learning place to an action place, and then it's, I mean, Speaking for myself, like it's vulnerable to try and reach out and, and start that inclusive journey because it will most certainly involve some direct correction and education from the people around me. And, um, [00:18:00] I think what you're saying, it is a very vulnerable thing to, to learn something and then to try and change an organization and to, to make that big shift of who are we inviting and who are we putting in those positions of power and making those shifts. And I see it happening. And, you know, there are all kinds of companies with different quotas and they're trying to get certain rates of leadership in different areas. Um, it sounds like you did it. Fairly quickly and a steep learning curve, as you say, how did you, uh, so one of the phrases in your book is, uh, discomfort, resilience, learned, like that's part of that humility and letting go, um, allowing to be uncomfortable and to be educated and to continue to grow and listen to other people. What was that like? And, uh, you talk about. You know, getting feedback about cultural appropriation and, and [00:19:00] those types of things. Can you speak to that process and the humility or learning Nina Simons: curve? Yeah. I mean, I think, I think one of the things that it requires is really coming face to face with having been raised by a culture that is deeply embedded in white supremacy. And so, you know, when you face that, when I face that in myself, it causes me to look at the stereotypes I carry, you know, my assumptions that someone may know less than me because they have a different background or a different color of skin. Um, and in fact, The more that the doing has taught me, I mean, I think studying and learning with other white people is really important and really necessary, but also, um, I think it's taught me a kind of [00:20:00] humility to understand that, you know, I'll give you an example. Um, early in my women's leadership work, I remember saying to a room of mixed women that I was raised in a home where anger was not expressed. And as a result, I didn't really know how to have a healthy relationship to anger and that I suspected that that might be true for many or most women. And I had an African American woman immediately push back and say, Not true in our culture. You know, I, I was raised to express my anger in a great and healthy and strong and quick way. And I thought, Wow, okay. Well, that's something I have to learn from you, you know, that's great. Um, so I think Let's see I think the other thing about it that I want to say and I I write about this in a longer essay in the book is that it's one thing to [00:21:00] learn about white supremacy and the racist history of our nation from your head. And it's another thing to feel it in your heart. And some of the hardest anti racism training experiences I've ever had has been witnessing other white people only respond from their heads. And they either get defensive or they have a rationale or, but But the truth is, um, we are living among people who are experiencing painful events due to the racism deeply embedded in our culture every single day, many, many times a day, and sometimes it's it involves fear for the life of their Children, you know, um, and. And so it requires really extending your empathy to somebody else's experience, and similarly, [00:22:00] as I've learned about Indigenous peoples and the horrors that we have inflicted on them, that this nation has, um, I find myself having tremendous amounts of empathy and compassion, and And then the trick is, how do you turn that into some sort of action? Because knowing about it, thinking about it, talking about it doesn't mean squat until you do something about it. And that means helping in whatever way you can. But it also means not falling into the trap of becoming a white savior. Instead, coming in a humble way to say, I want to be of service. How can I help? Tell me how I can help you because only they know what they need really. And, um, and put me to work, you know, I'll wash dishes. I'll take out the trash. Tell me what you need. Um, So, I mean, I guess that's the [00:23:00] best I can do in a generalized form. Yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So I want to mention today too, we are recording this on Memorial Day in the United States. The day that we remember people have passed away, our ancestors and our loved ones. And For me, a part of this process has been coming to terms with, with my own family history and the complicity in the settler colonizer state and in the patriarchy and, um, a lot of the contradictions that are there, that it's really tempting to paint a really pretty picture of pioneers or pilgrims, or, you know, the settlers that built this cabin and worked so hard to settle this area. And it's, It's, it's so many complicated overlapping truths of also, um, genocide and rape and, um. And land theft. And death and destruction. Yeah. Yeah. Land theft and, and continual [00:24:00] occupation. Here I am. Yeah. In Utah. I have no ancestors from Utah. And I'm still here. Yeah. And, um. It's, it's a paradox and it's hard and it's uncomfortable. Um, and I have children. So part of my work is to teach them about all of that and try and model how to continue to exist and then what to do next. Um, because I think if I'm running away from it in my own family system and my own family culture, like I can't. I'm not going to do anything on a greater scale that's actually helpful, you know. Nina Simons: Yeah, I sure do. And we're surrounded by so many examples of people who, you know, there's a saying, uh, in the healing communities that hurt people, hurt people. Yes. Right. And, and so what you're facing, Alisa, is very much an opportunity to break the chain and [00:25:00] to, um, to really choose something different for yourself and your kids. And I applaud you for doing so. It's a big deal. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you. Yeah, it, it's hard. And it's vulnerable to, to put myself in positions to learn and to be corrected and to be told, um, that I have a limited perspective. But, but like you're saying, there's, it's not just all pain there. Like, there's so much beauty in learning. Uh, one of my. Favorite examples of this recently is, um, in the resistance to the Dakota access pipeline, uh, the Lakota people established a resistance movement and it was led by the indigenous people of the area. And there were lots of activists and other native people that came to help. And proportionately the, the local native people were a very small fraction at the end. Um, but everyone continued to function. under the guidance of that leadership and under that sovereignty. And I, it's such a [00:26:00] beautiful story that is just a fraction of what was going on there, but that, that sovereignty and that leadership and that respect that was able to function, I think for almost like 10 months in that space allowed for a much larger work to happen. And it's a beautiful example of how. Leadership and sovereignty is not, it doesn't have to be this dominating power, but it can be this community agreement to recognize leadership in these beautiful spaces and with indigenous values. And, um, it brings me so much hope. So I can, I can feel what you're saying about the resilience and the hope and the leadership and the learning that comes from engaging with these stories that also hold so much Nina Simons: pain. Yeah. Well, and, and frankly, there is a, a fierce commitment to surviving and thriving in many Native communities. And [00:27:00] it's huge. You know, I, I recently heard a friend whose son was at Standing Rock, and she's a Native woman, and she said, I'm so grateful for what my son learned there because he learned that you don't ever put lives at risk without checking first with the life givers and the life bearers. So you go to the women first for their permission if you're going to consider something dangerous. And he, she said, I'm so grateful he learned that. You know, and it made so much sense to me. I thought, wow, what if before we went to war, you know, we had part of our constitution was a council of elder women. They would consult before going into war. It would change everything. Revolutionizing. Right? Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. And in your book, you talk about, uh, the Iroquois Confederacy and the, uh, [00:28:00] The Nina Simons: Haudenosaunee. Thank Alyssa Calder Hulme: you. Yes, I read it. It's, it's weird to say it out loud. I'm not used to that. Um, Haudenosaunee and how they have that council of women. Yeah. And that is, you know, that was the inspiration for a lot of the, um, the feminist movement in the United States. Nina Simons: And the U. S. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Constitution. Yes. And I, I have, I have, um, Iroquois ancestry and I'm so proud of that piece and I, it's, it's a very small fraction, but I'm like, ah, I want to connect with that part of, part of my ancestry as well because, oh my goodness, we have so much to learn. I have so much to learn. Um. Okay, so many things that we could, that we could talk about here. Um, Nina Simons: You know what? Can I jump in for a sec? Oh, please do. Please do. Okay. I was realizing as I was anticipating being with you today that I was thinking about my own relationship to ambition. Oh, yeah. And, and what I [00:29:00] realized was that I've never had ambition to be rich or a celebrity. I've never had that kind of ambition. The kind of ambition that I have had has been a promise to myself that before I die, I'm going to live out what my soul brought me here to bring. And that's a form of ambition, I realized, you know, and certainly, you know, I enjoy being well used. I enjoy feeling like I've contributed something that's really Helped move something, um, that I care about and I work with a number of women who are quite ambitious and I love that they're ambitious because, you know, they're, they're sort of natural born competitors and, and. Why shouldn't we all have that within ourselves? You know, a [00:30:00] desire to excel. So I think, you know, part of what I talk about in the book is this idea that I call full spectrum leadership, and by which I mean, having access to all of our human capacities at any given time. And if the feminine is the receptive and the masculine is the active, why shouldn't we have all of it? I mean, of course, as whole human beings, that's my aspiration. Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, I thank you for, for bringing us back to that, uh, cause I, I do want to explore that more. Um, one of the things I'm cautious of is engaging in a binary of, um, and it's ironic because you know, the name of the podcast is. Women of ambition. And so I'm engaging in that in, in a division by calling out experiences of women. Um, so I am cautious of that, but as you're saying, being holistic [00:31:00] people, exploring all pieces of our identity, making sure that's in balance, you know, it's not just women reclaiming femininity, but it's also men reclaiming that part of their leadership as well. And having that holistic experience. Um, Can you maybe speak a little more specifically about the different ways that, uh, feminine leadership comes across? I know there are so many examples in your book. Nina Simons: Sure. You know, there's There's a phrase from the late 60s feminist movement. I don't remember which number it is, but I can hardly keep track. Are we in the fourth Alyssa Calder Hulme: right now? I think that's Nina Simons: what we're in right now. But, um, you know, feminist scholars started writing about all our ways of knowing. And reclaiming all our ways of knowing. And that phrase really [00:32:00] resonates for me. Um, what I've realized as I've explored my own self and cultivating myself to, to full flourishing, which is how I think of it. Um, and I hope I'm continuing to cultivate myself until the day I die, right? So that, that involves taking risks, being vulnerable. Um, what I find is that I almost have practices to turn down the volume on my mental capacities and turn up the volume of the knowing of my heart, of my emotions, of my body's Knowing and intelligence, and also of my intuitive or spiritual understanding and relationship to the sacred, to my ancestors, to the invisible world, you know, scientists are proving all the time that, uh, the invisible world [00:33:00] actually exists, and that in fact, it may have a far greater influence on events than the part that's visible and palpable to our five senses. So, so what I've found is that as I'm growing toward my full flourishing, and I should say all this self cultivation has led me to a place, Elisa, where I'm feeling more, um. authentic, more fully integrated, more free and more trusting of all of the parts of myself than I ever have in my life before. And I want that for everyone. It's just so wonderful to feel. And I, I look back and I think, well, I kind of wish I'd learned it sooner, but I'm not sure I could have, you know, so it, we'll each take whatever time we take. Um, Okay, what did you ask me? Ah, okay. Feminine leadership. So, you [00:34:00] know, what it looks like to me is recognizing that our emotions exist for good reason. Whether we're in a female body or a male body, emotions are communications from nature about something that we need to pay attention to. And in fact, of course, as we all know, in our culture, Hollywood produces movies that they call chick flicks that are all about relationship and emotion and men don't think those movies are for them. But I personally believe that if we could institute publicly acceptable, safe venues for expressing both grief and anger, we could Dial down the amount of violence in our culture almost overnight. I think it's just huge. So, you know, one of my favorite examples was a woman [00:35:00] at one of our, uh, trainings who was a labor organizer. And she described sitting at a table with a room full of men and how she was so passionate about something that she was crying. And she didn't apologize. She was the leader in the room. She didn't apologize. She spoke through her tears. She said, I'm weeping because I care so damn much. And they all really got it. And I thought, wow, what an incredible role model. Um, you know, and, and part of what, uh, we did on those retreats was to unpack the conventional forms of leadership where leaders, think they know the answer to everything, right? And, and to juxtapose it with new models of leadership where it's safe and okay to say, I don't know, does anyone have a better idea? Or does anyone have experience with this who can help inform us? I think we're all [00:36:00] moving toward much more shared, egalitarian, team based models of leadership. And that the more comfortable we can get with that within ourselves. So that we can see it as a, as a accomplishment, not as a failure to be sharing power. Um, the quicker and better we're going to transform our world. Yeah, I, Alyssa Calder Hulme: I totally agree with you. Nina Simons: That's beautiful. I mean, there's another thing that I would say too, is that, you know, Part of this all was ignited, uh, when I first saw a film online called The Burning Times, and I began to understand through that film and the research that I did, um, subsequent to that, that all of the systems of our society had transformed during this three to four hundred year period in European history that had correlatives all over the world. [00:37:00] And that everything associated with the feminine became devalued, and everything associated with the masculine became elevated. And, uh, and so for instance, you know, being embodied is a gift of the feminine. Um, literally we birth literally . Well, that's right. Exactly. Exactly. And how many men do you know who are comfortable in their own bodies? Yeah. You know? Um, so they can only feel anger. Well, how crazy is that? Yeah, right. Alyssa Calder Hulme: They're very emotional. But it can only come through in one way. That's not healthy. . Nina Simons: No, and especially not at a time when there's so much. Lost going on and so much pain and suffering. I mean, honestly, if you're not feeling grief, you're not paying attention. Um, because there is a lot of that going on and it's painful and real. Um, so, you [00:38:00] know, I think, I think that. Uh, freeing ourselves of the old conditioned mental models and then aspiring toward, you know, how can we embody our whole selves? How can our creative self become part of our leadership? How can our playful self become part of our leadership and how powerful that could be really to say, I don't know, what do you think? You know? Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I, I really appreciate that. Bye. Bye. humor can be one of those really transformational pieces. Um, I'm learning, I'm learning so much right now from, um, queer and trans people in terms of creation and joy and extravagance and flamboyance. Um, and, and same, especially with, uh, black feminist women, um, in their liberation movements and rest and healing and spirituality and wholeness and all [00:39:00] these textures of self that I. I might not even be aware of or might not even think about bringing forward in those places and, uh, we just, we need each other and, and as we're talking about these emotions and, and lack of touch with ourselves, um, you know, I think about the, the lack of our public ceremonies and, and morning processes and celebrations and these community experiences that we, um, That our people had long ago, or maybe we've lost in our current day. Um, and you talk a lot about the women that are bringing those kinds of ceremonies back and you talk about personal ceremonies. Um, can you speak maybe a little bit to that and how that. Works to integrate those parts of ourselves or or exercises them maybe I don't know. What do you think? Nina Simons: Well, you know, I think what you're referring to. I refer to as [00:40:00] rituals and I Maybe 15 years ago or so. I was gifted to To experience a ceremony by a Peruvian teacher named Oscar Miro Quesada, and at the end of about an eight hour ceremony, he said, if you remember only one thing, remember this, consciousness creates matter, language creates reality. Ritual creates relationship and even though it was the wee hours of the morning, those words landed in me like, and I have used them to cultivate myself for now a long, long time and found them really helpful. And one of my favorite examples is just a really simple one where I realized one day that when I got out of the shower, I would look in the mirror. And I'd have all [00:41:00] these voices go off in my head about my hips being too wide, or my belly being too round, or my butt being, you know, all of those things, right? And I realized that each day I was doing violence to myself. And that I had to not only stop it, but replace it. And so I made up a ritual where I found a body oil that I really liked and, um, added essential oils to it until the scent really pleased me as a first thing in the morning kind of a thing. And so then I, you know, I held myself accountable for every day getting out of the shower and anointing my body with that oil. And while I did it. pouring love into my body and telling it what I was grateful for and what I appreciate about it and thanking it for all [00:42:00] the ways it supported me. And it, you know, it only took, takes two or three minutes a day. But what I found was that if I invent a ritual to strengthen some part of myself and hold myself really seriously accountable to doing it every day. Somewhere around six or eight weeks, I can feel a change in myself. And, um, so I find that really helpful, you know, and, um, similarly, I realized on our women's retreats that it made me nuts every time I heard somebody refer to a room full of women as guys. I was like, no, we are not guys. I'm a Alyssa Calder Hulme: California girl. I am totally, I totally do that too. So I'm trying to change my language. It's hard. It's hard. Nina Simons: Well, I'll tell you what helps. I love calling them guyas. I would be like, look, we're all Gaias, okay? Let's do [00:43:00] that. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I like that. Because then you can change it mid word when you realize it's happening. Nina Simons: Exactly. And how wonderful to be addressed as a planet. Yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So is, have you, have you moved those rituals and things into? practices with other people. I can see that as being something that's really powerful in friendships or even in like a business setting or a collaboration space. What does that look Nina Simons: like? Well, you know, a lot of what I talk about in the book is the power of women's circles. There are a lot of great authors who've written about this. Um, but the truth is you can do it. With one or two or five other women and, um, you know, there's a wonderful ritual that we do, we did in our retreats that we called compost and cauldron. Yes, I wanted to Alyssa Calder Hulme: talk about that because I love the idea of compost rather than like throwing something away. So please. [00:44:00] Right. Nina Simons: Okay. So basically the ritual is this. You observe each day. What do you want to let go of? What have you observed in yourself that you're ready to give back to the earth because it's no longer serving you? And it could be a self limiting idea. It could be. Uh, a habit that you have, you know, it could be anything, but it's something that you really want to ritually lay down to the earth and know that, like with compost, it becomes food for the earth. It's not waste, it's not trash, it just becomes food. And what you put in the cauldron is what you're cooking on for yourself. And so, you would go around the circle and each woman would say, I'm composting this. that I saw myself do when I compared myself to the woman who walked in the room. And I thought, Ooh, I have the wrong shoes. I'm not dressed right. I, I, I'm not nearly smart [00:45:00] enough compared to her, all those things. I'm composting that and I'm going to put in the cauldron how good I felt. When she appreciated my idea, right? I love that, yeah. I know. So, and what happens is that everyone in the circle benefits from it because we, you realize that these things that we have, so many of them are shared and so universal and it takes it out of the me and the individual and puts it more into the circle of we're all healing from this crazy culture that has given us a lot of conditioning. that doesn't serve our best interests, our best flourishing. And so when we do it together, it becomes more lighthearted. You know, we all can mirror each other. And I think the other thing that I found about working in circles with women is that often others can see us [00:46:00] much more clearly than we can see ourselves. And so it can be very helpful after you're working with somebody in a circle. That you know, or you know pretty well, and you can say to them, you know, when I do my own self assessment, what I notice is that, uh, A, B, and C are some of my strongest gifts or talents, but I don't know if you see me that way. How do you see me? What do you think are my strongest gifts or talents? And what do you think are my areas that I could be strengthening or, or, you know, where I should turn to another for help? Um. Because that's cultivation. That's an investment in each other's leadership. And it's so helpful. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I love that. It's that vulnerability and practice, that humility that we were talking about. Nina Simons: Yes, Alyssa Calder Hulme: exactly. Investing in and lifting each other up. Um, Yeah, I, I think that's just another, [00:47:00] another kind of ambition to, to practice that when it, when it might feel so, um, unnatural initially. Nina Simons: Well, I think, I think like anything, you know, it's a muscle that when we practice, it becomes stronger. And I think also just to tie it back to our earlier conversation in relation to racial justice, you know, it's very important that we as white women don't go to women of color and say, teach me, what's it like to be a person of color or what do I need to learn? Because that's a kind of, um, uncompensated emotional labor that white people tend to lay on the backs of people of color. And so it's really important that we educate ourselves. Both about the history of slavery and colonialism and racism in this country, but also, um, about [00:48:00] our own relationships to our ancestors. So we're not going to them saying, you know, here, fill up my culture cup with your culture. No, we have to have our own. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So that, that was one of the other things that I was thinking about as you're discussing this, um, because I know a lot of. A lot of white presenting people have been very separated from their indigenous cultures and practices and rituals. And so a lot of us are, are seeking them out and we can, um, we can appropriate from other cultures in ways that we might not, in our ignorance, might not realize are damaging, um, and then, and learn and change, but then also in kind of, Trying to create our own rituals, even if we don't realize we're adopting something from another culture, um, but then we can be educated and learn and grow. I think that's kind of my fear in that way is that I will in learning something that's helpful to my spirit and to. Um, learning and growing, then learn that I have [00:49:00] adopted that without permission from another culture unknowingly, um, is that just, do I just need to keep being humble and, and learning? Nina Simons: Well, Alyssa Calder Hulme: it happens so inadvertently, you know what I mean? And it's genuine. And then the impact is so painful to others. And so I'm just grappling Nina Simons: with that. You know, one of the things that I've learned from my contact with indigenous peoples is protocols are really important. And what that means is you don't borrow from another culture without citing the source. And so, if you learn something in a book, cite the author. If you learn something from a teacher, ask their permission before you share it again. Because there is something about honoring others sovereignty that is so central. To the dignity of people trying to heal from all these centuries of oppression. And it's when we do things [00:50:00] without citing the source, without asking permission, without honoring where it came from, that's when it's really cooptation. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. Yeah. I thank you for that. I think part of my, my issue is I don't always realize that something comes from another culture. Yeah. And I guess at that point, all I can do is Ask for forgiveness and learn and adapt in the moment. Nina Simons: Ask for forgiveness if you hurt somebody. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. Culture is a nebulous thing. And we learn from and with each other constantly. We are fundamentally social creatures. And, and culture is always evolving. So, you know, there is a way that that line is not nearly as as clearly drawn as some people would imagine. And so I think you just have to practice witnessing [00:51:00] yourself and being clear about your intentions. And, you know, one of the things I like to remind myself, Alisa, is that doing racial justice work as a white person means having both a thick skin and a thin skin at the same time. Yes, I agree. I love that because I want to open myself to really feel other people's experience and the truth of that and the pain of that. And at the same time, I want to have a thick enough skin that I recognize that when I make mistakes, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. It means I have to. Pay attention and learn and apologize if it's appropriate, but it doesn't hurt me to make mistakes, really, you know, and, and so I think it's an art that we practice and get better at being thick skinned and thin skinned at the same time. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. And then, and then having you taking the privilege and the [00:52:00] position or whatever we have to actually go and act on that knowledge and, and help people. Cause we can't just learn something and crumple inward and not do anything about it and just feel guilt. Like that is not. That's not the point. And I also don't want to be, yeah. And I also don't want to be so scared of doing something wrong that I'm not engaging in reaching out and being vulnerable. So, I mean, it's a, it's a tricky balance, I think, but, um, you know, one of the things you talk about is. Engaging in community and in listening to one another and growing together and it's vulnerable, but that's I think that's part of that leaning into that feminine side that has been so undervalued for so long. Nina Simons: It's true. And I love that you mentioned earlier. That, um, you named rest as part of reclaiming the feminine and, you know, I have a teacher who taught me that spaciousness is where the feminine [00:53:00] flourishes. And I thought, huh, in this culture that is so focused on hyper productivity and, you know, how many of us have to do lists. that are way too long and don't give ourselves spaciousness, even for 10 minutes in the middle of the day to just chill and go quiet or sit, um, and be, be in spaciousness. I think that that's a vastly underrated, undervalued experience that, um, can help all of us who are ambitious and leaders and caring about flourishing into our best selves. Um, that's a practice that's worth cultivating and believing in because it also helps. Me to remember to value myself deeply, you know, not in a hallmark way not in a narcissistic way but in a like [00:54:00] I you know, this body is the instrument of my purpose my soul's purpose and Taking good care of it for the long haul is not selfish it's an act of leadership and one that I I hope we all do because we are living through an epidemic of burnout and um, that doesn't help anybody. It just perpetuates the, the dying system. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I agree. Um, you know, I have three daughters and I, and you're talking about leadership and self care and you know, every time they walk in on me taking a bath or laying down and reading a book. Or painting or something that feeds my soul. It's like, I'm not doing it for show, but they see me and they will take my lead on those types of things. And every time, you know, I burn myself out, it goes that way too. So yeah. Um, yeah, I, I'm remembering now the, some of the rituals that I've created for [00:55:00] myself where when I'm menstruating, I. I slow down and I build in time and space to take a special bath with a special candle and, um, you know, Epsom salts or some things. But, uh, it's, it's been interesting for me to use my own body rhythms to remember that the world is not built for me. Every day is not the same. I'm on a cycle, engaging with the moon, engaging with the stars and being like, yeah, every day is not the same. I'm not a man, I don't have those hormones. And, you know, taking that time to reconnect. with that feminine side that's cyclical and changing is, is really beautiful. Nina Simons: It is. And it's a beautiful capacity that women have to connect with earth cycles that way, you know? Yeah. So cool. It was very powerful to me to learn. That in many Native American [00:56:00] cultures, the tradition of banning women from sweat lodges when they are on their moon time did not come about because of any belief that the women were dirty. Quite to the contrary, it came about because of the belief that women on their moon time have a more direct connection to the sacred. So there you have it. Yeah, I, Alyssa Calder Hulme: I have, I have indigenous friends that have been, um, leading and teaching me in some really beautiful ways. And they continue to emphasize that to me and talk about how in their society, women don't need the sweat lodge because they have their own ceremony. It's an excess. It's an extra, but the men. require it because they don't have that in their, in their biology. And, you know, I, it's such an interesting thing to learn about and I'm still just scratching the surface on that, but that's been part of my, my [00:57:00] coming back to self ritual, because then it does allow me to do all the many other. Outward things that I want to do, but yeah, you know, we have to have balance across all parts of ourself. Yep Nina Simons: Yes, we do Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay, well we are gonna wrap up here, but thank you so much for for coming on and sharing these things just a Beautiful, gorgeous book. I can't wait for other people to read it and to share it even more. Um, is there anything in closing that you want to share with listeners, with ambitious women? Nina Simons: Well, I would say, um, That it's worth checking out Bioneers because the role models there are amazing and the conversations are amazing. Um, the URL that's kind of great is bioneers. org slash NCS book because then you can download a free copy of [00:58:00] the introduction to the book. And. Um, if anyone does do that and does read the book, I would ask humbly that you put a review on Amazon because they count and they're hard to get. And I'm very honored to be offering this book to the world and to your listeners, Elisa, and, and thank you so much. What a treat to be with you. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, you're very welcome. Um, is Bioneers still, do you still do in person conferences? Nina Simons: We do once a year, um, in the Bay Area in Berkeley, uh, in late, uh, March of next year. And we also have a great newsletter and radio series. And that's free to any station and, um, just a lot of great resources online. So it's very much worth, and I'll be teaching actually an online course in August on sacred activism. So if [00:59:00] that's of interest, then sign up for the Bioneers newsletter and you'll hear all about it. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay, good. Yeah. I, I really want to go to the March conference. Um, I'm going to be in grad school next year, so I'm not sure how busy I'm going to be, but. How great. Yeah. Well, and I, I'm trying to, I would love to, I'm in sociology and I'd really love to work with nonprofits and grassroots efforts and especially women, um, and gender equity and things like that. So it's all very, very close to home for me. It's very exciting. Nina Simons: That's so Alyssa Calder Hulme: great. Well, I love hearing about these resources. So thank you so much. Um, and yeah, we'll point people to your book and to your website and they'll get to check you out there. Thank you so much for being on the show, Nina. Nina Simons: Thank you, Elisa.

February 10, 2024

Impostures Syndrome and Black Ambition: DEI, Racial Capitalism, and the History of Policing in the US + Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.

Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Women of Ambition podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Calder Hume, and today we have Whitney Knox Lee. Whitney is a civil rights attorney, an equity and inclusion consultant, a mother and wife, and the host of the Empatrix podcast. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you so much for being here, Whitney. Tell us a little bit about your podcast, because I think that encompasses a lot of these, uh, these different roles that you fulfill and passionately. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It really, yeah. It does. So, um, Impostrix podcast, we are going to be affirming the lived experiences of professionals of color who navigate imposter syndrome, white dominant culture, and racial toxicity at work. Um, and so really what that means is we're going to be diving into all that it means to be a professional of color, um, acknowledging that we are working within systems that sometimes were created to exclude us. Um, so we're going to be talking about like, how do we identify when we're [00:01:00] working within these systems and if these systems are like actively working against us and we are being gaslit about that, then what do we do? How do we deal with those types of conversations? Um, we're going to talk about the historical context of race and racism, um, here in the United States. And what that has to do with where we are now, um, as folks of color who are working in professions. And then we're also going to talk about like the science behind how racial traumas. affect us, affect our brains, affect our bodies, and in turn affect how we show up to the workplace, and whether or not and when we might be triggered by circumstances that are happening around us, whether that's within our work environment. Or like for me, it's mostly, uh, external facing when I'm working. Um, so I work as a civil rights attorney in the South and I represent folks who are incarcerated. [00:02:00] And what that means on a day to day is that I'm constantly going to jails and prisons and seeing people who look like me, who are behind bars and living in cages. Um, and so this, the science component I really want to get into to better understand for myself. When I'm leaving these jails and prisons and I'm feeling triggered and worked up and having to, um, Utilize all of these tools to kind of bring myself back to safety, um, why I'm feeling that way. Mm hmm. Alyssa Calder Hulme: That sounds, I think that's so important that like, it sounds like you're talking about like embodiment, like mindfulness and being aware. And I would venture to say that no HR in America is set up to help people understand those. Pieces of themselves. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: No. And somebody recently asked me, we were talking about like the DEI profession. So diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sometimes there's a B at the end, which means belonging and [00:03:00] why that's important. And this was some, this was coming from a black woman who owned her own law firm. Um, and so she was asking really as an employer, like, why is this important? Why do we need this? Because these days, like. People aren't showing up to work and just being like overtly racist. And, you know, to answer that question, it's really about creating a community or a space within the workplace where we can feel like we belong, where we're seen and where it's psychologically safe for us to show up. And so if I am experiencing being triggered because of the work that I do, feeling safe. To talk about that, to raise that, um, and then having systems in play within our workplace that can support me in that, you know, it's, it's part of. The, the reason or the, the need for D E I B. Do you Alyssa Calder Hulme: [00:04:00] see, I I've heard a lot of different things about diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, um, and we'll get to ambition. I always get off track, but I really want to ask you, um, as you know, per the normal way it goes in America. A lot of the times, um, there's a lot of performativity, uh, within the workplace. Um, D I, um. Groups being formed within companies and not really being informed or not being led by the correct people or not being educated Do you are you seeing that trend and is this some is this a another thing? We need to abandon and start over with or is it something we can work with do you think Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I definitely think we can work? with it because Often what I see, so I work in the nonprofit world, um, and it may be different in the corporate world where theoretically there's more money. But what I see is often there are these like voluntary committees, like diversity committees, um, who are [00:05:00] tasked with doing this work. And oftentimes these committees are made of people of color. Who have other whole jobs within the organization and who are taking on this really emotion heavy, um, labor of trying to help this organization do whatever it is that the organization wants to do, whether that's be more inclusive, hire, um, from more diverse communities. Um, or, you know, whatever, whatever the goals are. And so I think it's a start, it's a start that people are talking about diversity or about equity or about inclusion. But I'd say two things. One, that these types of, um, movements within organizations need to be supported by power. Um, they need to be deputized. You know, they need to have resources to [00:06:00] actually be able to follow through with whatever the initiatives are that they're tasked with, I don't know, doing. Um, but also it needs to be supported by by the leadership. And so like they it needs money behind it. It needs recognition behind it. It needs support. So when I say support, I mean, like, I, I think executives We need to be lifting up the efforts of the DEI community or the DEI committee, attending the events, making things mandatory, um, you know, putting, walking the walk. We can't just say, okay, we're going to have a DEI committee, give them like a whole list of things to take care of, but then not give them any money, not give them the power to actually make the decisions. Like if you have a [00:07:00] committee and that committee makes a decision, but in order for the decision to actually be implemented within the organization, it has to go through two or three more layers of approval, then that's not actually giving that there should be no approval process. Exactly. Like that's not giving the committee the power to do anything because what's going to happen is it's going to come up against somebody, um, for approval who has not been a part of these conversations, who is not doing the work who might be removed from like. What the actual need is, um, who may not be a person of color and not saying that all people of color on the same page about this, but like it does require some internal personal work to be on this page of how do we make our environment more inclusive and how do we make our environment psychologically safe for folks of color to come to work here? Um, and then the last thing that I want to say about this is that. This work shouldn't [00:08:00] stop at diversity. Yeah, because it's not enough to have representation of people. And so when we talk about diversity, we're talking about quantity. We're talking about the number of people who are people of color or who are, um, gender non binary or who are LGBT or whatever, you know, the, the group. Um, it's not enough to just to have the numbers. If those numbers don't have any power and don't have any say within the organization. Um, so if. You're working at an organization that hires 50 percent folks of color, but all of those folks of color are in. Um, roles that are underpaid, um, overworked that, you know, maybe receptionists who have a lot of the front end kind of work load, but aren't really valued the same as. An attorney, you know, and in my [00:09:00] field, same as an attorney. So, um, then that's not, that's not inclusion. That's not equity. Um, it doesn't create an environment of belonging. All that you've done is created a diverse work environment. Yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, I think, thank you. That's a, that's a really great answer. Is there, is there like a, a place to go to vet different companies and like, does Glassdoor have a diversity, equity, inclusion, quality control element, or is this mostly word of mouth to try and find a good workplace? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: You know, I don't know the answer to that question. I think there may Is it indeed? It may be Glassdoor. One of these websites does have like a, where people who work there can provide feedback as to what the culture is like. And then they might say it's, you know, doing well or not doing well. Um, but honestly, you know, I think we learn this through our [00:10:00] interview process. Um, we learn it through our engagement with the organization that we're considering applying for or the company that we're considering applying for. Like what has their impact been on the community? Are they in the community or are they just like sucking resources from the community? Um, who are they hiring when we're talking to The receptionist like what do they look like? Yeah. Um, who are we seeing when we go into the building? Um, not just the website picture, right? Exactly Alyssa Calder Hulme: And it's hard with online hiring processes. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It is it is and then asking questions It's totally okay to ask in your interview like So do you have any equity or inclusion initiatives or, you know, stuff like that, what are, what's the breakdown of, of, uh, races that work at your organization? I mean, figure out a nicer way to say it or like a less, I don't know, blunt way, because also [00:11:00] this type of stuff, these types of questions do come with risk. Um, and the risk is they're going to decide that. You care too much. Yeah. And that you're not a good, you know, fit, quote, unquote for the company. Um, and that's fine. Like that's when you know that you don't want to work there. Um, but if it's something where like you need income to support your family, and this is the only interview that you've gotten in three months and you really don't have the luxury or flexibility to not get this job. Um, then yeah, you may not want to ask those questions. Yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, that's tough. Okay. Thank you for that. Um, let's shift now to ambition. Uh, we were talking a little bit before we started recording about your experiences with that word and your reflections on that word. Can you tell us a little bit about what that word means to you and what your thoughts, where they've led you? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, um, I don't think I've [00:12:00] ever thought about that word prior to preparing for this interview, um, and well, and listening to your podcast. And the reason is. Um, I don't think that being ambitious as a black woman is safe. Um, for me, it hasn't been historically being ambitious, wanting to do more than maybe what's expected of me or wanting, um, more of myself. Uh, I don't think that that's safe, and so it's not necessarily that I am not ambitious or that folks of color are not ambitious, but we do what I do, um, consider it just a little bit differently, maybe, um, and I don't, I don't have. a name for it. Um, I know [00:13:00] that I'm somebody that is very mission based and value driven in all of the work that I do. And I know that I'm stubborn. Um, I know that if somebody tells me that I can't do something, then I most certainly will be doing that thing. Um, but when we think about the history of black folks in America, um, it's never been safe for us to do anything other than what we've been told to do. We have never had kind of full ownership over our physical bodies. And so doing things that are outside of what's been prescribed for us to do has. been a threat. Yeah, to white people and to the dominant culture, which is white, white dominant culture. Um, and [00:14:00] so I think culturally, um, like for me and my family, I come from a middle class black family. Um, I grew up in Seattle. My parents. Went to college. They also got, um, advanced degrees. So I'm not like a first generation of anything, really. Everything that I've done before my everything that I've done, my parents have also done. And what I was blessed with as far as my privilege of being a middle class growing up middle class, um, is that I grew up believing that I could do whatever I wanted to do. Um, and that to do whatever I wanted to do, it was going to take some work and some action behind it. Um, but I never, that was never kind of packaged as this idea of being ambitious. Interesting. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So, [00:15:00] um, in our last episode, I talked to Natalie, who's a Latina woman, um, and talked a lot about how she was brought up to also believe that she could do anything she wanted, but then when she, like, really was a teenager and becoming an adult and was confronted with a lot of the xenophobia and racism things, that was surprising to her, and she's had to work a lot to overcome that, and so she was frustrated that she hadn't been prepared better for that as a child. It sounds like you had some level of preparation and you knew a little bit more about what you were getting yourself into. Is that accurate? Yeah. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: So I do think, yes. Yeah. I think that's accurate as a black person. I don't know how to say this. The experience of black folks and Latinx folks is very different. Obviously, you know, I mean, I'm not telling you anything new, but one of the things I just had a conversation for Impostrix podcast with someone who identifies as Mexican who grew up [00:16:00] here in the United States. And what's clear to me is that for some, uh, Latinx folks, culture, there's almost like a bubble of culture, um, that they may be living within. For black people, for myself, I'll speak for myself only, it wasn't necessarily that. Um, our culture in my family is not very removed from white culture. We do not have. centuries of knowledge of our ancestry. So like, as far as I'm concerned, my family starts. In, you know, two or three generations ago in South Mississippi, I don't know where our family came from. So by the time my parents came of age and had us the culture that I was raised within was this white culture and it was a very, [00:17:00] um, like I knew that I was black. I knew what black people were up against. Um, but I also knew that my parents were able to overcome what they experienced, the racism that they experienced, um, to find what they considered to be success. And so I knew that it would be available to me, but that there were going to be challenges that I would face that white folks might not face. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah, the Black parents I've spoken with talk a lot about the burden and the absolute essential nature of preparing their children for the world. Walking down the street, going to school, getting jobs, getting pulled over. All of these things that many of us who might live in a bubble or who are part of the dominant culture just have no clue about. Um, so it sounds like survival and, and thriving with an asterisk is, is something that you were prepared to do, um, or, or set [00:18:00] up to do from your upbringing. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Um, yeah, I would say to some extent, I mean, I do, we're going to get into this, but you know, when thinking about imposter syndrome, I think part of the reason why I experience imposter syndrome and this feeling of not belonging or of being a fake or intellectual phony is because although I knew a little bit of what to expect. I still I look different than the people that I'm interacting with on a daily basis who have power like the ones that aren't behind bars. Yeah. Um, but also I don't have the, um, family history within the institutions that I think that some of. My white colleagues and counterparts have so I don't have that very kind of ingrained culture of privilege that [00:19:00] a lot of a lot of people. Yeah, right, grow up with. Yeah. And so I think to some extent like that still is still surprising to me that I'm still dealing with imposter syndrome when I'm 10 years. into lawyering. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. So, so from, from the lawyer's perspective, you say you work in these prisons. Um, are you able to speak a little bit about the history of policing and the jailing system? And, you know, we're talking about where belonging and imposter syndrome, like a lot of those institutions were established to capture, recapture enslaved people to make sure that they were staying where they are. Like that is the system that was really built for. Black people that the lawyer world being behind the desk rather than behind the bars like no wonder there's imposter syndrome Because it's literally not Structured for you. Can you do you have more to add to that or I don't know Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes, I mean that's the perfect example, right? I mean this is this is like the [00:20:00] conflict that I live with like this is the purpose for imposter X podcast because I It's bizarre. It's a bizarre reality to be for me, for me to be someone that literally all it took was a little bit of luck and like not getting caught doing something that somebody else thought. Might be illegal. Otherwise I could be on the other side of those bars, you know, it's, it's that easy. And so to, to your question about like the history of policing, I mean, you're totally right. So our, um, legal system and our policing system is all based on the recapture. Of enslaved persons, as you said, um, it was never meant to provide safety for black folks.[00:21:00] It was never meant to be fair for black folks. Um, Alyssa Calder Hulme: it was about protecting white property, right? Whether that's human people or, you know, shipping things down at the docks, right? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And that's. You know, our constitution and the, our, our constitutional rights. The right to due process, the right to equal protection under the law, all of these things were never meant for black people. And it took going to court to enforce these rights, to get recognition. And not just black people, it wasn't meant for anybody other than white Europeans. You know, because through the years, there have also been Supreme Court cases where Japanese people are having to establish their citizenship or their right to be here. Um, of course, Native Americans still, you know, are [00:22:00] not afforded all of the rights that Alyssa Calder Hulme: Others are, um, people that live in a category. They are a, what do they call them? A legal, a legal group organization. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, people that live in our territories, Puerto Ricans don't have the same rights as people that live in mainland United States. Um, and so this system was never meant to benefit people that look like me. It was always meant to protect white. Um, and it's also this system that created what we know today as these racial categories of, you know, white, black, um, Asian, because before that, like it was just, we were living in our countries just being people. But then in 1619 with the start of the slave trade and the [00:23:00] start, well, not the start, but the start of people coming to what's now the United States. is when white settlers had to create distance. from the dark skinned people that were getting off the boat. And they needed to do that, not only for themselves as the ruling class, but for white indentured servants as well. They needed to create like the upper class, the middle class, who are like the overseers, the slave overseers. And then the lower class, the people that weren't people, you know, the people that counted for Three fifths of a vote, you know, um, and so it's all of this history and context that I think is really important for me, um, when I'm thinking about lawyering and how I'm showing up, um, because many times it really does feel as though I am an agent of this system that was designed to keep me subservient. Um, and so when we're [00:24:00] talking about ambition, I mean, everything I do is ambitious because everything that I do outside of I don't know, get welfare. I don't know, whatever people, whatever the, the dominant culture sees as my place as a black woman, whatever I do is something above and beyond what's been intended for me. And so, um, like for me, that's just living. That's just like life and showing up to work today, um, or showing up to my family today. Um, and it does, as I said, it comes with risk. It's not safe. I don't work. In psychologically safe environments. A lot of the time. Um, my like workplace where I go to do work is fine, but like everywhere else isn't going into courthouses. That's not safe. It's triggering for me. Um, I'm not often. I'm having to prove that I'm an attorney where other people aren't having to prove that their [00:25:00] attorney. I have to dress more professionally than my counterparts. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I I've shown up to court in a suit, which I feel like is appropriate, but there's a white man who's shown up and like wrinkled khakis and a sport jacket. Um, I'm not a part of the club of people that so when you go into courtrooms and if you're there a little bit early, you'll often see that there are attorneys that have like secluded themselves. Um, away from all of us common feet people, um, and they're like having chats, they're bantering and sometimes the judge might be there with them. Um, the bailiffs might be there with them and they're just kind of chilling. Like sometimes in South Georgia, this happens, um, behind closed doors in the hallways, um, leading up to the judge's chambers. Sometimes it happens in the courtroom, but like, I'm not a part of that club. Um, and [00:26:00] part of it is that I I'm a nonprofit attorney. The part of it is that I'm a black woman. And like, if I step into that circle, then the whole mood and tone of that circle changes. So you had asked another question, I think about like. I'm not sure. I think I forgot the second part of that question. Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, we were just talking about uh, imposter syndrome and feeling of belonging or not and how the systems like literally aren't built for certain people. And so no wonder when we step out of our prescribed roles we're feeling that imposter syndrome because it's not like, it's not a personal insecurity, it's like literally This wasn't meant for you. You were never supposed to be here and yet you are here. And so it sounds like a lot of the work that you're doing is how do we survive and thrive in those spaces and take [00:27:00] care, take care of yourself and like be aware? And it's just so compounded by race. And by, by racial disenfranchisement and like histories and, and even like you're saying like family histories, like your own personal location of like who you are and how you got here. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, that's right. Because I will say to that in some of our, in some communities of color. Um, the more successful, um, according to the dominant culture, the more successful you are, the further away you are from your culture of origin. Um, and you are kind of considered, um, an outsider or like in the black community, you'll be considered maybe like an uncle Tom or somebody that's a sellout. Um, and so there's also, you know, this pressure from within some of our communities that if we are [00:28:00] being, I don't know, successful, if we earned a seat at the table, then, um, you know, we're, we're somehow selling out and, and, you know, sometimes, not all the time, because obviously there's plenty of times where we are successful and our communities are proud of us. Um, and I think both of those can happen. It's not either and. Yeah, but it's just Alyssa Calder Hulme: so much more complicated. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Right, exactly. Alyssa Calder Hulme: So my, my classic example is like of a white guy that's being introduced and it's like, oh, he's very ambitious. Everyone's like, right on. And if it's a woman, it's like, what does that mean? And I can see how for a person who's, who's not white, then there's even more of that compounding, like, Suspicion or like concern or like it really is that like crossing that line into not following the socially prescribed role and then you're being seen as deviant like that's the sociological word is like, and it's not just, you know, someone who's [00:29:00] breaking a law needs to be thrown in prison, but like you cross that line into social deviance and people are very suspicious. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: All of a sudden, right, right and power because you know one of the. Characteristics. So, um, Dr. Tima Okun is the person who's come up with these characteristics of white dominant culture or white supremacist culture. The terms are kind of used interchangeably. Um, and she talks about white dominant culture as this culture where Everything around us is taking on and adopting the value of the white middle class. Um, and so it shapes our institutions, it shapes our media, and it shapes the way that we see each other. And that includes whether we see somebody as good or bad, dangerous or not dangerous, or to your point, ambitious or not ambitious. Um, and so for folks of color, ambition is like a tightrope that you have to [00:30:00] walk, because the moment that You are perceived as a threat to power. Um, the moment You are not, you know, you're not useful anymore. And whether that's, um, somebody who's trying to get a job somewhere and maybe they're the person that holds the position that supervisory to them, um, feels as though they're. out of line for asking questions. Um, I know we all have heard of situations where like a white man basically can get away with some things that a woman can't. Um, and you know, for folks of color, it's even more that like a white man or a white woman can get away with something that a person of color, um, could not because the moment that we ask these questions, then it becomes, you know, people assign a tone to our voice. Thanks. Or, um, attitude, right. Aggression. Yeah. Whereas, you know, for white [00:31:00] folks. That same tone is not assigned. It's thought, like you said, of like a positive quality of, um, being ambitious or being curious or asking the next white question, right question, or, um, you know, it's just framed differently and we, in our society. Um, then this society that, you know, survives on, on capitalism, there's only so much power. And so we have this scarcity mindset. And that's one of these characteristics of white supremacist culture that Dr. Akun talks about is that there's not enough power to go around. And so people who have power have to hoard power and have to keep power. And people who don't have power, we have to keep them there. Because the alternative to this, like, imbalance is that everybody has power. And if everybody has power, then what does power really mean? Um, and so if we [00:32:00] want to keep this system where we have rich people, um, where we have, uh, people that I don't know are better off or are good, then we also have people who are bad and people who are poor and people who are less than. Um, and people are really tied to that, that system. Um, that's the system that our country was founded on. That's the system that's still in play. And, you know, I think what's really important is that capitalism, uh, I believe can't be separated from racialization and this idea of like racial. Um, capitalism where the value, um, so it's a process of deriving social and economic value from the racial identity of another person. And this term racial capitalism, um, was coined by Cedric Robinson [00:33:00] and his book, black Marxism, and it. He's talking about this idea that we can't have capitalism without having, um, exploitation of folks of color, because that's how we got our money, right? That's how we got our power in the United States is through exploiting folks of color. Um, and whether it was their labor or their physical person or their minds or their entertainment, the way that we sing, the way that we dance. Um, and we live in this world where the things that can be exploited from folks of color will be and all of the, you know, struggles or the like real life human issues that folks of color experience, just like white people, um, [00:34:00] is now made just an issue of folks of color. So like poverty, um, criminality. You know, and people use this, the fact that there's a, um, disparate impact that our criminal legal system has a disparate impact on folks of color. And they just say, well, that's because folks of color have a higher, I don't know, what is the word? They, they're more likely to commit crime. Like, that's not true. There's nothing about us that makes that true. Um, so yeah, I think I got a little bit off, off point, but I just really wanted to talk about just this idea of racial capitalism. Oh, yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I think it's really important and like what you're saying, like, in order for someone to be good or on the right track, it means that other people have to be off of it. And that's like one of these like binary thought processes and that's, you know, that's part of how the racialized system was established was like, [00:35:00] this is what is good and that is what is other. And so there's always that like foil that has to be there in order for the structure to function. And then, yeah, if everyone has power, if there's no foil, then. There is no power and everyone is, you know, no one can control other people. Like it's, it's just so fundamentally there. And, and I think what you're saying about ambition is how that, like being ambitious is putting yourself at risk always. Like that frames it so night, like, so not nicely, this isn't nice. Um, it frames it so accurately. Because you are threatening the system, and you know, we feel those in, you know, there's microaggressions, there's those little tiny interactions that happen. It's so interesting, because it's not like there's some big clash all the time. I mean, there are big clashes, but this is happening in these tiny, tiny moments throughout all of our lives, all the [00:36:00] time. It's like being reified, and like the The social response to being seen as that, like deviating from that path, that, that's like, um, in sociology, we call it enemy. Like it's, um, social punishment. I'm missing the exact word, but like, like people are just trying to get you back into your space constantly. And so if you're stretching beyond what is socially expected, you are putting yourself in greater harm and greater risk constantly, but also. People of color have to do that in order to survive because the system is not set up to support them. And so you are in this, I don't want to say no win situation, because I think there's, there are other pathways out there, but that's the reality if you're gonna be in the capitalism of the United States at this point in history. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, it just [00:37:00] takes a lot of energy. Yeah. I mean it's very It's an exhausting thing because it does need to be purposeful. Like if we're going to go against like not even capitalism, I don't even have to like, I'm not even saying, you know, whatever, whatever your beliefs are about capitalism is fine. But if we're going to, um, create environments where it's safe for everybody to be ambitious. Um, then that takes effort and like affirmative action it takes when you're seeing something happen where maybe a person of color is being, um, identified as somebody who's aggressive or you know, you're in a boardroom and there's hiring decisions being made or promotion decisions being made and a person of color is getting passed up because they work too hard. You know, our role there as people, you know, if you have privilege is [00:38:00] to speak up and question it and not even say, Oh, you're wrong. That's racist. That's bad. But just to say, Can you tell me more about that? Can you like, I'm trying to follow your thought process. Can you just help me figure out where you're going? And by questioning in that way, and really trying to get the person to identify What their real concern is, you know, you might encourage them to like, say these words out loud so that then they're thinking to themselves, okay, maybe that's not, that doesn't actually sound. That didn't come out how I meant it, you know, when it did, but like, it just doesn't sound very good coming out and so, but allowing that person like engaging that person in conversation may help them to figure out like, what is it that they're looking for? And how can we like one is the thing that they're looking for the thing that actually needs to happen. And if so, like, how can we get there in a way that's more equitable, instead of, you know, putting [00:39:00] these labels on people based on stereotypes based on white fear of losing power, and I'm not wanting to share that power. Yeah. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Thank you. Um, with all this in mind, is there a space that can be created or is existing or that you've experienced where black ambition, people of color's ambition is safe within certain constraints or certain communities or places? Like, are you, do you, is there a safe place being built? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I think there are safe places for me. I have a sister circle. Um, you know, bringing it way back down to like the personal level, I have a community of people around me and we celebrate each other. We celebrate each other's accomplishments and we encourage each other to do the next thing if that's what they want to do, whatever that next thing be, [00:40:00] or sorry, whatever that next thing is. Um, I think in organizations like this is a role that the diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging work can can fill is creating a space where black ambition is safe. Um, but I think like. On the larger scale. No, I mean, we, we had a black president and you've seen what that's resulted in. I mean, like, there's no, we were able to elect somebody into office that holds, you know, the most powerful position in the world. And the backlash. We're still living that we will be living the backlash of that. Um, you know, probably throughout our lifetime. And so I don't know. I don't think that black ambition is safe, like on a larger scale. Um, [00:41:00] but I do think that there are communities where it is safe. Um, one of the first places that I found real kind of. I guess I just felt seen was an Essence magazine, um, reading through Essence magazine and reading about people like myself. Like, I don't know. I just felt for a couple of years I had a subscription before, um, COVID and I don't know, I just felt empowered and like I was seen when I was reading through that. Um, and so that's just like, A small example of a, of a space of a community. Um, but I, I mean, we're living in this racialized capitalistic system. So while we have that, no, I don't think that it black ambition is safe. Alyssa Calder Hulme: How do you mind speaking a little bit to maybe how that's affecting your parenting? I mean, you said you're a mother. Oh, I know. It's like [00:42:00] a whole, a whole thing. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, I'm terrified. So everything about being a black woman. Um, can be terrifying and starting with pregnancy and maternal health. Um, and I, I live in Georgia, Georgia has one of the highest rates of black female, um, mortality for people who are pregnant. Um, we also have high rates of black infant deaths. Um, after birth for no reason, I mean, like not, I shouldn't say for no reason because of racism, you know, and medical racism, uh, and, and so, you know, I've had really traumatic births, um, that I still am like finding myself triggered. Now and then when I'm, when I'm speaking to people, um, [00:43:00] and when, and I, and so I also have an autistic son, um, and he's three years old now and he's black. Alyssa Calder Hulme: The whole neurodivergent space is just full of white supremacy, like the, to the craziest degree, IQ testing, support systems, schooling systems. It's, oh my gosh, Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: huge. Absolutely. And so that's a thing. And one of the, like. One of the decisions that we had to make last year was whether or not to, um, enroll our son in ABA therapy, applied behavioral, what is it, analysis or something? I don't know. Um, there's all this controversy about ABA therapy. Um, I don't have a position on this controversy. All I know is that I need my son to be As little of a threat to white people as possible and that I saw and my husband saw ABA therapy as a way to help make that happen because he's already a threat. Um, so I have a [00:44:00] neurotypical son and a neurodivergent son and they're already threats because they're little black boys. Um, but if my autistic son. Is not showing up, um, as people are expecting him to, if he is being too quiet, if he's being too loud, if he has explosive tantrums, if he. I don't know looks if he stares off into space if he is not functioning how his teachers expect him to function or how the police expect him to function or any random person, then he's at risk. Yeah, he's at more risk than him. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Other people's children than white anyone, any other child, probably Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: exactly. And so, you know, for us, ABA therapy meant a way to help Royce, our son, um, [00:45:00] I don't want to say conform or assimilate, but how to manage his behavior and how to learn social skills so that. He can basically show up more of how people are expecting, you know, I mean, and that's just the fact of the matter, whether or not I think it should be the case that he should have to do that. All of that stuff doesn't matter because it is what it is. Um, and so to your question about like parenting and racial capitalism and black boys and all of that, like, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. There's no, there's nothing. Like there's nothing to make that sentence better. It's just terrifying. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Um, have you heard of, um, Trina Green Brown Parenting for Liberation? It's a book. No, I haven't. Um, so I was able to listen to a, a class that she gave, she's also a Black mother, um, [00:46:00] talking about racial trauma, raising children, and Working through her own stuff and trying to let her kids teach them survival skills, but also let them have like liberation and joy. And, um, that's a nonprofit in Southern California, um, that I think is just wonderful, but I I'm reading that book right now. And it's talks a lot about that. Um, and it's geared towards black parents. That's who it's for. Um, but I've been learning a lot through, through her stories there. And yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: It is. There's a lot that goes into. To black parenting because our parents were raised by parents who had children like disappearing with no explanation. I mean like, of course we still have that happening, but We, we were just raised by parents whose parents grew up [00:47:00] in the thick of it, like pre-Civil rights movement. And so what that means is that what our parents learned from their parents and have passed on to us are these ideas of like how survival, these ideas of survival. And that looks like. Staying in line like staying in our place, not acting out. And so, you know, in the legal profession, we see sometimes, um, families who are caught in, um, juvenile court proceedings because they discipline their Children in public. And for black families that might mean spanking, that might mean hitting people with a switch. Um, and while that's not something that I want to do, and frankly, most of the parents that I know that are my age, like, don't want to hit our kids. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I don't think anyone wants to, but if you think it's going to keep them alive, like, just do it. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Right, exactly. And that's, that's the thing. It's like, so, I [00:48:00] love, you know, hearing about Parenting for Liberation because What I've learned, um, is that in order to keep our kids alive, we need to discipline them in a way to basically scare them from doing anything out of line. And that can mean using violence. My own parents did not, um, use violence, but my grandparents did use violence on us and then on, you know, on my parents. And so we're also left with like this, okay, so how do we, how do we navigate discipline if we don't want to like hit our children? Um. And so, yeah, I've got a lot to learn in that, in that respect, because I'm a cry it out person. I was like, I can't, and I'm somebody that, um, live with postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety in addition to this trauma. And so like really early on, it was clear to me that like, I just can't handle you. Like I want to hit you. So let me walk away and you go and [00:49:00] cry. Yeah. Um, because I can't do this. So my children are like the timeout kids and they'll go to your room and think about it, kids and like, leave mommy alone kids. Um, because like, I, you know, I have a lot to learn in that area for sure. Alyssa Calder Hulme: It sounds like a lot of healing and creation and then there's the generational trauma, but then there's also generational healing. And I mean, I see that to agree with my kids or I'm just like passing it on. Like you'll do better than me. And I will do everything I can to set you up for a better life and I'm sorry, I'm doing my best. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. And just like letting our kids be has really been my husband and I both struggle with that because letting them be means that they might not be safe. Um, and balancing those, those two things. It's hard. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I have, I have neurodivergent children as [00:50:00] well. And it compounds. My concerns for them. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Did you guys, um, utilize ABA? Alyssa Calder Hulme: No, we don't have autistic children. Um, Okay, but I have a lot of friends that do we have a lot of other things that so we have ADHD. We have dyslexia we have dysgraphia, dyscalculia, anxiety, depression, I've wondered about autism, but we've never had that diagnosis so far, um, and I, and I originally was just so grateful to have an idea of what was going on and then unpacking, uh, how that diagnosis process comes across and how it's, um, implemented. And I was homeschooling my children at the time and the, the doctor's response to me as a homeschooling mother was just that it was me and that I was doing a bad job and just like. Wow. There's a lot of sexism in Utah, like it's a thing, but, and then going through the school [00:51:00] process and getting support and, and therapies and all kinds of things, um, it's heavy. It's a lot. And it's really under misunderstood. Certain things are like, I think ADHD is getting a little bit more understood, at least for white kids, white boys. Yeah. Um, but. I don't know. I think it's, I think it's an our generational thing that we're trying to heal and get better. At least those are the people I'm choosing to surround myself with. And it means a lot of parenting of our generation are doing it completely differently from the way we were raised. That's a lot of work. And it's a lot of unpacking. A lot of healing work. It is! Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And like, I'm really curious, like, I look forward to hearing about what this is all going to look like when you go back to school. Because, like I'm first of all, I'm not like stay at home mom homeschool mom material like that is not me. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. They drive me crazy. [00:52:00] Um, but adding on this component of like neuro divergence and all that that means. Is a clusterfuck. I mean, it's like, absolutely expensive. Oh my gosh. So expensive. So, so, so expensive. Um, there's so much logistics that go into it. There's so much. I mean, like getting people to where they need to be, um, getting the, the therapies. Alyssa Calder Hulme: And just trying to like learn your child and they're all different. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: They're like, all the children are different, which is like a trip to me still that like Everett is not the same as Royce and Royce is not the same as Everett. Um, yeah, it's, it's a lot. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. So, so we had to reschedule this a couple times because of me and I'm sorry. Um, but part of what's happening right now is we have a really hard time with transitions. lot [00:53:00] of people with autism do. Like we're all neurodivergent over here. It's really stressful. It's really hard. We're, we're getting our house ready to rent. We're finishing our basement right now and we're trying to do a lot of it ourselves. And then my kids just ended school. So we're starting summer. Um, I just ended my schooling. So I'm transitioning from being full time school to now full time stay at home mom again, which. is really hard for me because I, I did homeschool for four years and it was wonderful. And I was very done with it when I was done and, and basically like been working full time being in school and now I'm at home again. And then we're, you know, prepping to not only move, but to move across the country and going from rural Utah to suburban Chicago, uh, is going to be a drastic change. And yeah, we're leaving our doctors and our therapists and our friends and our support networks and our community here in. All of those changes are really big and like the kids that's that's the one Thing that has been the hardest with this move and with [00:54:00] me making my choice of what I want to do with my life and where I want to go to school and None of the other things really matter to me It's my kids that matter the most and it's been really challenging to make this decision I think it will be the best one in the end. Um, but yeah, it's it's a hard thing to manage all of that and I mean, I, I've been the primary caretaker of our children for their whole lives, 12 years now. And so I'm very aware of how this stuff affects them and the mental load and all that. So, uh, yeah, we'll see how, how much time I'll have to actually share and peel back all the layers here and talk about it. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. I mean, it's. Yeah, but you guys can do it. And, and kids are resilient. Well, I feel like there's so much Royce, my autistic child. I just feel like it's so much more resilient than I ever was. Um, because he, and, and part of it's his [00:55:00] age is that he can learn. Yeah, he can. Adjust if he, if he needs to, but he also is so stubborn and just hold on to his himself, which is amazing. Um, he lets, you know, if he's not pleased, Alyssa Calder Hulme: such a gift and such a challenge Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: it is. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Yeah. I think it'll be really good for our whole family, but especially my children to be in a more diverse environment. Um, we're homogenous place right now and. There's going to be a lot of really wonderful, wonderful, good things for them to explore and to learn and to create friendships and communities and, um, and bonds with other people that are, that look different from them, that have different beliefs, that, you know, all of those, those things that we've been talking about, that's something I really value. So it's more than just. It'll be a blessing to them. It's just harder to see that on this side of things, you know? Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah. Yeah. So how old is your oldest 12? Alyssa Calder Hulme: She will be 12 in September. Yeah. So they're still all [00:56:00] elementary school. They'll be close by. We're going to, you know, be able to walk everywhere we need to go, which is really awesome. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: And it'll, it's just, it's a big change from what we're used to. It is. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. Well, so much for being on the podcast. We've covered so much ground, Whitney. Thank you. Um, I really appreciate you. Explaining this and talking through it and delving into, to race and experience your experience as a black woman, I know that's work and effort and labor, and, um, I really appreciate it. I know our listeners do as well. And I know there are many listeners out there who are going to feel really seen because of what you said. Um, yeah, it's making me rethink the way that I approach that word and experiences and just really. Taking a step back and making sure I see more of the big picture and making sure that when I talk to people, I have space for for all of their responses and [00:57:00] experiences. So, so thank you for opening up and sharing with us today. I really appreciate it. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been a, it's been a pleasure. Alyssa Calder Hulme: I always love to talk to other podcasters. It's so much fun. Yeah. To hear where they're coming from and what their passions are because we like to talk and we have passions. Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Um, yeah. And so people, so the name of the podcast is Impostrix podcast and, um, we are on Spotify and Apple and Amazon. And people can find us at www. impostrixpodcast. com. And then on Instagram at Impostrix Podcasts are the two main, main places. Awesome. Alyssa Calder Hulme: Okay. Anything else you want to share with us before we close? No, Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: I just I hope that, um, you know, these I want to say that these conversations are hard like conversations about race and understanding each other and where we're coming from and how our race impacts like our perspective on even things like ambition, um, can be [00:58:00] difficult to have and I encourage folks to, um, continue to try and push their boundaries around, um, the conversation, um, when it includes race, um, and to To To come. Somebody recently told me not to even assume the best, but just assume nothing like when you're having difficult conversations, whether or not it's about race or whether somebody is giving you critical feedback, um, assume nothing so that you can just hear the words. Um, and, and, you know, use that as a starting point. So that's my, yeah, that's my challenge for folks today is we're thinking about, like we talked about race, we talked about DEI work, we talked about racial capitalism and colonialism, and, um, these are topics that. Folks go through their, you know, normal day, week, month without talking about or thinking about. Um, so to the extent that it's uncomfortable, I encourage people to lean into that. Yeah. Thank Alyssa Calder Hulme: you. I appreciate that. That's [00:59:00] our ambitious challenge. Stretch yourself. Stretch yourself into discomfort, especially if you are a white privileged person, especially. Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much, Whitney. I really, really Whitney Knox Lee, Esq.: appreciate it. Thank you.

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What is Women of Ambition?: The Women of Ambition Podcast is a place where we explore ambition - first, the radical act of acknowledging it within ourselves, second allowing space to explore what ambition means for each of us, and third moving forward with intention. Host Alyssa Calder Hulme navigates stories of women accepting and thriving in their ambition through guest interviews and reflections.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates inactive.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 9 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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