Entrepreneurs, and activists discuss sexism in the workplace and how women should respond to sexual harassment. This event and washington, d. C. Was hosted by New York University and the American Association of university women. It is an hour and a half. Michael good afternoon, everyone. My name is michael ulrich. I am director of nyu washington, d. C. Its my pleasure to welcome you to the auditorium for the event. Nyu washington, d. C. Will present a series of paneled conversation through october 17. Stand up to sexism campaign. Please join us online or in person for this discussion series to fight gender bias in your about, and your workplace, and activism. This is entitled the f word. How to be a feminist in the workplace. Todays discussion will be focused on women navigating their feminist at work. It is my pleasure to welcome aauw college and University Relations manager who , will introduce the panel. [applause] paige great. Thanks, michael. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. For our second discussion, panel series from both nyu washington, d. C. And aauw. As michael said, this second panel is titled, the f word. How to be a feminist in the workplace. The f word we are referring to here is a little different than you might be thinking. We are referring to feminism. Im embarrassed to say that i didnt admit to myself that i was a feminist until my sophomore year of high school. Which is shocking considering the amount of time that i spent on the Basketball Court trying to prove myself and to others that i was just as good as the guys. Like many women, i was afraid of labeling myself as a feminist for fear of being judged. Femint for fear of being judged. Sensesater, i came to my and i realized the importance of feminism. Specifically intersectional feminism. In college, i majored in womens studies. I actually brought and aauw Student Organization to w. To fight for womens equality. I have theg for them honor of fighting for womens rights every single day. Other women i know are not so lucky. Aauw created our stand up to encouragepaign to both women and allies to stand against sexism and share how and why they do that. Video that has helped aauw spread this important message. I think the stages that, do you agree i agree. Dont be so emotional. Women are natural leaders. You should smile more. Lets face it, women have heard it all. Especially in the workplace. , barriersearch report gendered explains that microaggressions like these contribute directly to the gender leadership cap. Even small sexist comments hurt womens confidence and evaluate and work. Everyday sexism doesnt stand alone. It often comes coupled with ableism, racism, ageism, transphobia, homophobia, you name it. What can we do as a society to make womens professional lives better . How can we combat sexism at work and beyond . Exists for women to push past sexism. In various locations. One of the hurdles of addressing is, first, identifying it and then starting a conversation to stop it. Being a feminist and being a professional are not mutually exclusive. Our experts on our panel today are going to share some insight into how everyone, regardless of gender can be a part of the change. Now, it is my honor to introduce the amazing, incredible panel that w i will start with our moderator for the afternoon, nicole quiroga, general manager of telemundo washington, d. C. In richmond, virginia. Next we have jennifer dziura, writer and founder of getbullis site for advise careerminute feminist. Advice site for careerminded feminists. Next, we have dr. Avis jonesdeweever, author and founder and ceo of the Exceptional Leadership institution for women. Next we have patricia valoy, who is an activist blogger and engineer. Last but not least, we have suzannah weiss, a freelance writer. Thank you, everyone. Nicole. Nicole good afternoon. Thank you all for being here. Its a pleasure to be representing telemundo and be in such an established panel. Good afternoon. In be such an established panel. Good afternoon. We appreciate everyone who is joining us be a livestream and watching on cspan. Welcome. Is wonderful to see such a an amazing interest in this incredible topic. Lets get right down to it. Being a feminist in the workplace today, one of the main challenges in being a feminist is dealing with the daily occurrences of sexism. As we just had, sexism in the workplace takes many forms. Coupled with ableism and other isms. Its important to remember that sexism and discrimination can look different to each one of us as we are all from different intersexual identities. We all really do want the acceptingto be more place. We will be discussing the challenges that each of us face and workplace from microaggressions to harassment and how to overcome them. So, susanna, i want to start with you. You wrote none gender issues, sex and relationship in womens health. You covered many topics relevant gethe panel, but to help us context, could you explain more about gendered microaggressions . Sure, a microaggression is something that is not a very noticeable noticeable or obvious form of oppression. In the workplace, it might be Something Like using phrases like i. T. Guys. Out onlyple giving mail shirts making women feel excluded. Or, microaggression could be anything. A gendered microaggression would be a small action that people do all the time without realizing it. I would say without us even noticing. Did take this happened about three times today. That happens and we are unconsciously unaware. Patricia as a feminist writer, can you tell us how you incorporated your feminist . Atina identities its going to become a thing after this. Wither had a problem merging all three. I felt like there was no way i could put aside my latina identity or my identity as a professional or my identity as a feminist. I always wanted to incorporate those three things into my activism. I did have a hard time finding a place that understood what that meant or what that look like. When it come time to join circles, it was either this is a feminist thing, or its an endearing thing. I had to create and carve out my own space. I started doing that with my own blog and writing about intersections. It was never one of the other. It was always although the things that happen to me. Little by little, it became more affected. I still heavily identify mostly with feminist circles that are intersexual intersectional because they allow me to express my other identities and be my. Thats great. You find you are often having to chose one space or another . I know you have identified your own space, but when you go into the work we might have a male dominant population, do you have to choose what space to walk in . It does happen often. I would lie if i said im all the time all three unashamed, i think when it comes to my workplace, its very hard for me to just be a full out latina feminist and talk about racism and micro aggressions in all of these things that i would perhaps talk about in feminist circles so i try to focus more on stem issues. I talk about statistics and women in stem and race in stem. I try to use numbers. It is a way to kind of bring a little bit of that, a little bit of my latina and feminist activism into the stem world. Likewise, it happens in other circles. I have to think about how i speak in the language i use and what will get peoples attention. Its part of being an activist. I feel if im not making an effort to get my audience invested and interested in my message that im not doing a good job. I think it makes for a dynamic conversation in the fact that you have so many pools to choose from. I think its an art to be able to pull together who you need to be at that moment to heighten or further your agenda. Congratulations on that. Ill move over to doctor avis. You are diversity, equity and inclusion specialist and a career strategist. You have built your career helping women achieve goals and personal goals. It doesnt appear theres much of a demand for mens career strategist. This profession will look different for men clients. What does the need for your profession, helping women, what does that say about institutionalized sexism in the workplace. It says that it is institutionalized. Its normalcy. It has a lot to do with micro aggressions and the reality of unconscious bias and how that proliferates our culture. Really, when people think of the word leader, most people, the image they have undermined is a man and more typically a white male. When we talk about piercing through that paradigm and asserting themselves and being respected as leaders in the workplace, it takes a little bit more maneuvering and more advanced thought and what men have to put into it. Its this extra burden that women bear when it comes to being able to navigate their way to leadership or just navigate their way in maledominated professions. There are different skills associated that women have to take on this extra burden to learn in order to be able to achieve positions that they are well qualified for and deserve to be in in the first jennifer as a business owner, it looks like you operate in almost an entirely female world. Do you still encounter sexism in that area. First i would like to say what a great pleasure that is. The first decade of my career was not like that. Existing in a career made up of almost all women is fantastic. I enjoy it. Its refreshing like a cool feminist beverage. It couldnt be better. One thing i really enjoy about it, for instance there have been a lot written about how women apologize too much. We should stop apologizing so much. And changes it so we dont apologize too much. Do we apologize too much . Canadians apologize a lot but its not a problem when they stay in canada. Its only a problem when one nadine comes to america and is apologizing here. Theres so much thats just culturally that doesnt have a literal meaning. When you say have a good day, you know, there are so many niceties that we engage in that are not intended for literal meaning. I feel like when im working in an office with two employees, its an Office Warehouse so we are bumping up against each other physically getting things out of boxes and bumping up and its constantly sorry, sorry, sorry and everyones doing it. Its not a problem. When you say sorry it doesnt mean like i feel like i dont deserve space in the world like ive done something wrong or im a bad person with low selfconfidence, saying sorry is a social signal that says i would like to keep getting along with you. Thats all it says. Sometimes when you say thank you because youve just given the money for product, do you need to say thank you . No, but its nice. You buy a doughnut in you and the person that you bought a doughnut from, you each say thank you like four times. Nobody has low confidence. Its just a social signal that says i want this transaction to go smoothly and i would like this workplace to be pleasant and everything is good. I do feel like obviously, not all women are the same but nevertheless, in an all female workplace, i do find that aspect maybe conforms to what you might expect. I do have to do business with men sometimes, it does happen. Occasionally men come into the office and the like wow, its warm in here. Im not going to wear a sweater in my own office. Its nice to have a centering, women are the default here. In fact, in my online store, kind of a funny anecdote, we sell womens socks. I didnt bother to say women in front of the socks. Then i started selling a few mens socks and women could buy thing for men. In any case i started getting mail customers buying the socks and just assuming that if they didnt have a gender they must be mens socks. I got customerservice emails and a guy was like i bought all the socks and they were womens socks. I was like what makes you think they wouldnt be. You just bought socks from a feminist web store. Just process the return. Women are the default and i feel a little bit in the world is a nice thing. I have to agree with all that, and i think the conversation usually sways to how women hold women back. While you are right, i do that too. I say thank you or ill say im sorry. No, you dont have to get apologize. Thats a great way of saying it. Its not a weakness. Its just a social way of getting along much easier. My question to you is, for the purpose of identifying things that women can stop doing to each other, do you find in your female space there are things we are doing to each other subconsciously or not . Things that we shouldnt be doing, that were holding each other back and not really even knowing that were doing it. Can i tell you an antidote about the last time i tried to have a business meeting with a dude. One thing thats nice about being in a feminist workplace is that i do business with men but i dont need it. Theres a difference between them going into a Job Interview and i need this job and this guy wants to be my client, lets have lunch or Something Like that. I was having coffee with a guy about coming to teach a class in london and i thought that would be a cool opportunity and so ill just skip to the good part, he asked me a bunch of pointed questions about where my child was. Yep, that happened. I would like this is a coffee meeting. Theres so many places a child could be for a one hour meeting. So many perfectly safe places. Anyway, that was very strange and so after that and a bunch of other bizarre personal questions, he went on to say, i love working with mothers. It sounds like it set up to be a compliment but by definition it will be a stereotype. I love working with identity groups. No, nothing good can come from that. Stop talking. Im just waiting for it. I love working with mothers and i was like please, tell me why. Heres the answer because they expect so little and theyre so grateful. I cant even begin to comment on that comment. The emphasis is made for tv, we will just move on for that. Thank you for the example which is very true in our everyday lives. I will open us up for the next couple questions for the panel. The title of this is the f word, how to be a feminist in the workplace. Of course the f word, notwithstanding the last story is here to say feminist, how or why it is identifying, why is it that when we identify ourselves as feminists, its almost frowned upon if you say youre a feminist. Why do you feel its like that . I guess i will start. I work in maledominated fields were most of my meetings are devoid of any other women but myself. I found myself very afraid to use the word feminist around my coworkers. I think i probably went years without saying it. I was being very cautious about the word i would use when i have to travel for presentation or panel so as like i have to talk about women and engineering or something. I got tired of feeling like i was walking on eggshells and i had to question why is it that im scared. I started realizing i was worried they would see me as angry, i thought i would be treated differently, i thought for sure, if shes a feminist and shes probably talking about us, believe me, they think i talk about them all the time, so i had to get this inner strength to be like i dont care what you think about me, i dont care what you think i do in my activism, i dont care that you read my writing because im not saying anything you dont experience every day because a lot of it is coming from your mouth. So little by little i learned how to weave that kind of word into conversation. I would say this weekend im gonna go to a feminist conference and they would say oh, are you, and i would say yes i am. It was, i would say i kind of i think your wife would really enjoy it. You should tell her about it. I would definitely get a lot of side eye and size and concerned looks, and eventually it just became, thats just the feminist in the office and i was absolutely okay with it. It felt freeing to finally be like this is who i am, and i did find they were a lot more careful around me after i came out as a feminist. It was like this big deal. I remember thinking about it the night before thinking on many use the word feminist in a sense today in my office. After that, i changed something. There definitely thought about their actions a lot more. When they would Say Something sexist in front of me, i just had to look at them. They were like i know, okay, i apologize. I was like yeah, you should. It was just kind of like that scolding look all the time. Not that i wanted to become everybodys feminist in the office. I think people are so afraid to call themselves a feminist because a lot of people dont know what feminism means. When i said it people will say but you seem pretty feminine where whats your problem with men, and so, if peoples image of a feminist is somebody who hates men and is out to get everyone, then of course theyre not going to like it if you say youre a feminist so part of it is educating people that feminism means you believe in equality and yes that does mean man will have to give up some of their privilege so you dont have to water down and say not all men are against women, we shouldnt have to do that because sexism exists even if its not all men, but we shouldnt have to cushion our language, but we should, we need more awareness that feminism is about equality and things arent equal now and once they can see that things arent equal, theyre not looking to become female supremacists or something, theyre just looking to have an even playing field. Doctor eva, on a very random note, have you ever been asked to plan a Holiday Party or get a cake or something with birthday cards in an office environment. I havent but its not that much of an unusual thing. A number of women do experience that as if they are the office mommy role that they are expected to fill, and its important to make sure people respect you as the professional that you are, to have that be the default burden of the requisite woman or only woman in the office shows once again the pervasiveness of institutionalized sexism in the culture and though theres nothing wrong if one wants to do that and its your voluntary choice to do that once in a while, really its very disappointing to see office cultures were that is the expectation. Going back to you as a business owner, in your space it looks like you operate in an almost entirely female environment. Outside of the problems that we discussed, how do you think moving forward. Are you looking to implement men in this to create a reverse silence as we are talking about making everything equal, if you will . How do you feel about that . How do you see that . Does there need to be more space for men . I dont know how to take that question. At the time that i was hiring, i would consider male applicants as i was legally bound to do, but yes, i feel like so much of the rest of the world is not the way , thats not the way my i feel like things are , good. Actually, the conference that i run so far has been in the neighborhood of 55 people. I run a small conference for feminists who are interested in careers and entrepreneurship. It has occurred to me, there comes a certain size where i