Why Channeling Our Inner Beyoncￃﾩ Just May Start a Movement
When I use the term feminist, what comes to mind? Suffragettes marching on Washington? The birth control revolution of the 1960s? Women Wall Street execs in masculine 1980s business suits? Beyoncￃﾩ?
Yes, Beyoncￃﾩ! While those other images are a representation of how the feminist movement has evolved over the last century, Beyoncￃﾩ reminds us that we can't get too comfortable yet￢ﾀﾔthere is still work to be done.
What Work You Ask?
Just last week, Beyoncￃﾩ was named one of Time Magazine's most influential people. So I think it's safe to say that this hard working, honest, and authentic mama is the perfect modern female icon to look to for some clues as to the work that still needs to be done￢ﾀﾔand how we can draw inspiration from Queen Bey to be better women.
3 Lessons You Can Learn
1. Body image. I want you to sit with this word for a minute: Insecurity. It can really evoke strong feelings in most women, as we￢ﾀﾙve all felt it at some point in our life, in one way or another. As long as there continues to be unrealistic expectations placed on women to achieve a certain body type in order to feel worthy and confident, we as a gender will suffer.
Channel Your Inner Beyoncￃﾩ
Celebrate your body. I￢ﾀﾙm guessing you just thought, ￢ﾀﾜSure, that would be easy if I looked like Beyoncￃﾩ!￢ﾀﾝ But let me take you back to a time we call the 1990s. When Destiny￢ﾀﾙs Child arrived on the scene, Beyoncￃﾩ￢ﾀﾙs body type was not the most glorified of the three woman R&B girl group. As a culture, we were still in love with super skinny, ￢ﾀﾜlittle girl￢ﾀﾝ bodies. (Think: model Kate Moss￢ﾀﾙ advertising campaign for Calvin Klein in 1993￢ﾀﾔsome thought she was too skinny and could be suffering from an eating disorder, while thousands of others found her young, childlike, extremely skinny image beautiful.)
But what did Beyoncￃﾩ do? She celebrated her curves with a number one single. She made being bootylicious well, Bootylicious. And what do I have to say about that? "I don￢ﾀﾙt think you￢ﾀﾙre ready for my post pregnancy belly jelly!" Because guess what society￢ﾀﾔI need these curves! I use them to hold up my baby while I rock her to sleep for two hours; they sustain me as I produce enough sustenance to feed a growing human being (nursing mothers need calories and fat); they remind me that I am not a little girl￢ﾀﾔI am a WOMAN who has traveled and learned, lived and loved, failed and succeeded, and I wouldn￢ﾀﾙt have it any other way. So the next time you're feeling insecure, do as Beyoncￃﾩ did. Embrace your body and focus on all the amazing things it can do.
2. Gossip. How can we possibly expect women to be confident when at any moment they are waiting to be torn down by another woman? Ask any female why she gets decked out before she goes somewhere, and she'll tell you, it's not for the men (if it was, we'd just walk around naked all the time), but rather we follow trends and wear name brands to impress other women. Ladies, we are our gender's worst enemy! Until we learn to support each other and build each other up, we will continue to lag behind men when it comes to earnings and CEO and political leadership positions.
Channel Your Inner Beyoncￃﾩ
Don￢ﾀﾙt gossip and don￢ﾀﾙt fall victim to those who do. What I actually know about Beyoncￃﾩ is very little compared to most celebrities, and do you know why? Because it￢ﾀﾙs none of my business. Our obsession with celebrity gossip is really just a symptom of our obsession with gossip of all kinds. As women, we are particularly susceptible to being both the gossipers and the gossipees. By avoiding and refusing to acknowledge the incredible gossip machine that makes up today￢ﾀﾙs society, Beyoncￃﾩ is making an extraordinary statement about who she is and what she values. So follow in Beyoncￃﾩ￢ﾀﾙs stride, and remember: if we all gossiped less, well, we would all be hurt by it a little less.
3. Equality in the Workplace. Before I became the COO of Voom, I had no idea how much work still needed to be done in order to achieve female equality in the workplace. As I took on more of a leadership role in our company, I increasingly became more and more frustrated with the way our male clients and partners reacted to me in meetings. In every meeting, with every new hire, with every potential partner, I was doing the majority of the work behind the scenes. And yet, when it was time to close a deal, or have a sit-down meeting, inevitably people would address my male partners first. Ahh! Although I often wanted to just start screaming, instead I started to consider how other powerful women, like Beyoncￃﾩ, would react.
Channel Your Inner Beyoncￃﾩ
Let your actions speak for themselves. When I'm in a meeting and my potential client addresses all of their questions and comments to my husband (Voom's Founder and President), even though I'm the one who has done all of the work for the deal, I think about Beyoncￃﾩ and her hubby Jay Z. Do men ignore Beyoncￃﾩ when she's in a meeting and her man is by her side? I certainly can't imagine that. And why? Because she ￢ﾀﾜleaned in,￢ﾀﾝ has proven her success, her smarts, and her power over and over again through doing￢ﾀﾔthrough her actions. Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In founder and Facebook COO, said of Beyoncￃﾩ, ￢ﾀﾜShe raises her voice both on and off stage to urge women to be independent and lead" and "Beyoncￃﾩ doesn't just sit at the table. She builds a better one."
So instead of getting a chip on my shoulder, getting aggressive, or marching on Washington, I take every one of those meetings as an opportunity to show my stuff. I remind myself that I'm good at what I do. If people look to my husband at the beginning of a meeting, they are looking at me by the end. It is women like Beyoncￃﾩ, and I hope like myself, who will pave the way for my daughter so that respect from her colleagues won￢ﾀﾙt be something she has to fight for￢ﾀﾔit will just be a given, as it is for most men today.
Final Food for Thought
I want to leave you with an excerpt from a recent news piece on Beyoncￃﾩ￢ﾀﾙs recent milestone, as I think that the millennial media startup PolicyMic said it better than I could:
￢ﾀﾜSo yes, she's a feminist icon. Yes, it's impressive that she became one of TIME's most influential people only a year after her husband won the same honor. And yes, she's a phenomenal singer, she's a bold thinker, and she's a model mother. But that's not why she's one of our culture's most influential people. Beyoncￃﾩ is important to us because she exudes always an aura of belief in the value of her work, a sense of rock steady acceptance of her responsibility as an icon. She never flinches; she acts only with purpose. She's someone worth believing in because she's someone who believes.￢ﾀﾝ
Who Do You Look To?
...For inspiration, motivation, a little confirmation that you￢ﾀﾙre doing right by this world? Is it a celebrity like Beyoncￃﾩ? A co-worker? A family member? A neighbor? I￢ﾀﾙd love to hear about the women that inspire you to be a better, more confident, person￢ﾀﾔtell me about her in the comments below. 
And don't forget...only a week and a half until we announce the winners of our "Mommy Month" contest. Tell us about the person who inspires you, and you could win her some great prizes. Enter today!
Sources: LA Times, PolicyMic | Photo Credit: Time Magazine
http://blog.voomwell.com/blog/bid/384290/3-Lessons-Every-Woman-Can-Learn-From-Beyoncￃﾩ