According to a Cox Business study, 61 percent of women entrepreneurs started a business to be their own boss, and more than 50 percent became entrepreneurs to have greater control over their future. So, what holds more women back from taking the plunge?
Continue reading... →
Have you ever pursued something that you thought you really truly wanted to do, and then you tried it and gave up? And you don’t know why? I have. Many times. My first memory of this is in 4th grade, when I decided that I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I loved to sing, and I loved music. The guitar spoke to me. It was that simple.
Continue reading... →
Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media. ~ Annenberg Public Policy Center, “The Glass Ceiling Persists”
Here are 15 ways the media would be different if it were run by 97% women and only 3% men:
From our friends at Living Green Magazine.
Canadian author and social activist Naomi has been a long-time critic of corporate globalization, which she addressed in her books The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism and No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. On October 6, she spoke at Occupy Wall Street. Since amplified microphones are not allowed by the organizers, the crowd used their “human microphone” technique of having hundreds of people repeat her words so others further away could hear the message.
The speech was first reported in the Occupied Wall Street Journal and her longer print version was published in The Nation.
The following is the version from the Occupied Wall Street Journal, created by word of mouth.
Continue reading... →
I was born and raised in a small ranch in Brazil, and since the early days, my mom always made sure that we ate all our veggies and finish our fresh acerola juice. She always let – and sometimes encouraged – my sisters and I go play in the rain and mud. We never got sick and grew up living this very healthy lifestyle. Until this day, my mom is a wealth of knowledge about what’s good for us (eat your flax seeds grounded, but only grind them before you eat, and keep them in the dark!) and she always finds the most unique things at the grocery store, before they become “fashion” like the chia seeds juice or kombucha.
Ecobold evolved from an idea that I had to help people learn how to shop for healthy items. While doing my research, I realized that there were many products out there beyond food that people would love to buy, but didn’t know that they exist or where to get them, so I decided to switch plans to an online marketplace that helps sellers all over the world market their amazing products to the people who want them. And Ecobold was born. We launched just a few months ago with 80 products and today we have almost 3,000 products available in many categories: from beauty, to food, to clothing and even electronics. Our goal is to help sellers market these products and help consumers find these small sellers who are popping up everywhere (but who don’t have a clue on how to do sales online or where to even start). Sellers on our site can be anyone from a mom who decided to make natural soaps in her spare time,to a small business owner selling non-toxic body lotions to their local spas. Since we are based in Silicon Valley, we are in a position to offer them the absolute best tools to show their baby to the world, increase sales, awareness and get repeat customers.
Continue reading... →
Lisa Witter, Chief Strategy Officer of Fenton and co-author of The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World – And How to Reach Them.
The last few weeks we have experienced joy and sorrow for new and old Nobel Peace Prize winners — the death of the first African woman winner, Wangari Maathai, as well as the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, and Yemeni democratic activist Tawakkul Karman for their work on women’s rights.
This group shares a number of obvious attributes: strength, leadership, risk taking and vision. Another that may not be so obvious is how fun they all are or were, and how fun may have impacted the resilience of those movements.
I have had the privilege of spending personal time with two of them — Ms. Maathi when she was in Oslo to receive her prize and with Ms. Gbowee through the last few years as she toured the U.S. telling her story of Liberian peace in the award-winning film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. I can say that they both have fierce eyes of kindness and were often funny, with larger-than-life smiles.
Fun is often thought of as superfluous, extra, something to get to when you have time and a tool not to be used in serious situations. In fact, we have sayings to reinforce this notion: “this is no laughing matter” or “serious times call for serious solutions.” But fun can be, and has been, a powerful tool for transformation when tapped appropriately, as our past and recent Nobel-Prize-winning women demonstrate.
Environmental activist Maathi and her Green Belt Movement mobilized community consciousness using tree planting as an entry point for self-determination, equity, improved livelihoods and security, and environmental conservation. As she planted trees, she worked hard but never forgot to smile or create a chorus of song with her colleagues.
While being the first African woman to win the Prize, she was not the only Nobel winner to tap the fun factor in her organizing; Leymah Gbowee did, as well. It is not often you experience what feels like a real-time, front-row seat to a Nobel Peace Prize act like you do in Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film, released this week on PBS, chronicles Liberian women’s struggle for peace, shows the fierce organizing ability of Nobel winner Leymah Gbowee, and highlights the political skills of the first woman African President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Continue reading... →
Chalk up a win for moms around the country.
After years of battle, the chemical industry has reversed its longstanding position against restrictions on the controversial chemical bisphenol A, known as BPA, and asked the Food and Drug Administration to revise regulations on the use of the chemical in baby bottles and sippy cups.
It is ironic that the industry asking federal regulators to revise BPA standards is the very same industry that spent millions of dollars lobbying to block my legislation restricting the use of this dangerous chemical.
The American Chemistry Council must have realized that no matter how much money they spent, no parent, grandparent or concerned person would stand by while our children are used as guinea pigs with a chemical that could seriously harm their immediate and long-term health.
BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning that it can interfere with how hormones work in our bodies by changing their normal function. More than 200 studies link BPA exposure to breast and other cancers, reproductive disorders, cardiac disease, diabetes, early puberty and other problems.
Yet, the chemical industry stubbornly refused to listen to science and concerned consumers, and instead leaned on lawmakers.
Last year, the American Chemistry Council actually lobbied to prevent a vote in the Senate on the change it now seems to be advocating–a national ban on BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups.
Here’s why I think chemical industry lobbyists failed: Even though they successfully blocked a vote on BPA, consumers took matters into their own hands and voted against BPA with their wallets. Every time a BPA-free product was purchased, it marked a setback for the chemical industry.
For years the chemical lobby ignored the pleas of concerned parents, environmentalists and advocacy groups that called for a ban on BPA. Companies ignored the studies and continued to argue that there was no established link between BPA and many illnesses. There was simply no other alternative, the companies insisted—baby bottles and sippy cups could only be made with BPA.
Clearly they were wrong.
Read more at Senator Dianne Feinsten’s website
Continue reading... →
Eden Full, a 19-year-old Princeton University mechanical engineering student has developed a non-toxic, cheap, recyclable device made out of metal and bamboo that allows solar panels to follow or track the Sun without the use of an electric motor. This does two things: 1) it boosts the output of the solar panels by about 40% (huge) and 2) it does so using a much cheaper and simpler method than traditional trackers commonly used in commercial projects (her technology costs $10, a lot less than the typical $600 solar tracker).
Eden and the SunSaluter (being developed by her company, Roseicollis Technologies, now) have won a number of big awards for this ‘simple’ device. She just won $275,000, in the 2011 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge and $10,000 in the the EcoLiving 2011 Awards a few months ago. And she’s also won a $100,000 fellowship from the Thiel Foundation this year. Way to go Eden!
Continue reading... →
Sometimes the challenges of the planet seem too big, too complex. What can I do? What is my role to play? My late friend, John Armer, used to say, “Our job is to leave the sandbox cleaner than when we found it.” I have always liked this simple yet poignant saying.
I am a textile designer by trade. For years, I designed products for mass markets — Walmart, Target, etc. I loved my job. Creating patterns and designs is total joy for me. In 2004, I got a call from a competitor who wanted me to come work for them.However, I couldn’t do it. It didn’t feel right. It felt like a step sideways. It was a blessing though, because it got me thinking. What is the next step? What does it look like?
It was around this same time that I walked into a mass market store and found a sea of check-out stands, all filled with customers, all with baskets filled with stuff. All I saw was a glacial-size flow of landfill. Cheap stuff to be enjoyed briefly and then discarded. It was in that moment that it hit me—I was making pretty landfills for a living!
Determined to have my life’s work be something I could be proud of, it was on that day that I started down the road that would ultimately lead to the creation of Harmony Art Organic Design — an independent, printed organic fabric company. I am happy to report that six and a half y
ears later, colorful printed organic cotton is no longer an anomaly but a growing market segment.
It is my sincere belief that for the “sandbox” to get collectively cleaner (or remain dirty and continue to inherit more debris) there is a magic shovel. No, I can’t solve poverty, climate change, financial exploitation, or war. What I can do (and what everyone on the planet can do) is to look at my own life. What contribution am I making with my life’s work? What about your contribution? I made the decision to walk away from a steady paycheck to create a new, healthier fabric option for people and businesses. I don’t expect you to quit your job and start your own company — that’s extreme. But I do think if we each took a good hard look at the results of our life’s work, and simply focused on creating the best possible product (or outcome) for the world, the change would be explosive and powerful.
Continue reading... →Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Eileen Fisher’s personal core values are about helping women and girls find their voice and their personal path in life so that they can achieve what they were meant to achieve. She happens to do this this through designing and manufacturing clothing for women that are meant to unfold their inner and outer beauty. To me, this is the true purpose of business — to raise consciousness through capitalism. Imagine what the world would be if all the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies did that same?
In this podcast, I interview Eileen’s Director of Social Consciousness (yes, social consciousness), Amy Hall. She has worked at the company for over 17 years helping Eileen and all the staff support the company’s efforts to practice business responsibly. That includes activating the leader within for women and girls. “It starts with finding your voice — and where we are with it now is what we call activating leadership. Activating that internal voice, that internal ability that everyone has to take charge, to take control of the situation, to be a leader in her own right. It doesn’t mean they have to go off and run for public office. It means leading a household, leading a community, leading a cause, leading a belief,” says Amy Hall.
We call that at Women Of Green “Being the Change”. How are you doing that in your world?
Continue reading... →