Women in Business

I was just listening to a podcast about women in business featuring CoCo Chanel. I'm fascinated by fashion. I can't afford high fashion right now and I cannot maintain high fashion right now, but the allure and the fluidity of high fashion intrigue me. In the interest of dusting off my business brain, I thought the podcast may inspire.

A familiar voice casually led my mind as I set to scrubbing the kitchen sink, responding to emails and wiping the baseboards. All glamorous stuff, I assure you.
To hear of the humble beginnings of Coco Chanel and the manner in which she navigated the early financial hurdles of starting a business, the personal branding tips offered, the growth perspective, it was some what predictable, but worth hearing.
The narrative meandered through the chronological sequence of Coco's life and business choices until it reached war time Europe. The narrator's tone was a bit more reserved, as I would expect from was time discussion. I come from a generation that had relatives who lived through the Holocaust. We did not have peers who refused to believe it happened. I had classmates from the Old World, where the effects of the Cold War were still destroying families. We were not so far invested in our lattes and social media that we negated the goodness of a free country. All of that chatter hadn't arrived yet.
While times have changed, I still feel that the overall conscience of America is sound. There is a media dialogue that would lead us to believe that the world is morally bankrupt and that we are sure to perish, but that is not what I see in my neighbors. It is not what I observe around town. I see helpers. I see goodness. I see positive energy. The truth is, we see what we want to see, as far as I can tell. The story continued. The reader states, with reservation, something to the effect that we should probably mention the elephant in the room. History indicates that Coco Chanel was a Nazi. The narrator describes her as a sympathizer. Does that soften our reception? Coco was described as "perhaps even anti-Semitic".

I took a moment to let my mind wander to the choices a young entrepreneur-- a young female entrepreneur-- had to make to stay relevant as war loomed. I can only imagine what resources a Nazi alliance brought to her brand, at the time. I can only guess the social significance she was able to achieve by allowing her morality to take holiday.

The writer, the narrator, the production team, the marketing team have all invested time HOURS into telling this story. Present day, with the gift of hindsight at their disposal. They' reviewed the script and the audio composition. Yet no one felt the urge to talk about how a woman allowed herself to financially benefit at the cost of others. Not one of them had the moral conviction to say that there is more than a hiccup in judgement to this woman's story? Come. On.

Ladies, we live in an era when we can do ANYTHING. I just posted about this a few days ago. We can do and be anything, without the permission of a male escort. We can do anything we want.Now, wea aregoing to have to work for it, but the halls of education, the progression of career development, the world is open to us! We can write a little book about a Midwest town, publish and sell that book, without a man putting his stamp of approval on any part of the process. We can fly. We can vote. We can save money or buy what we want. We can travel. And *bonus* we can STILL give life. We need a mister to kick that off, but our bodies are designed to nurture and give life in a way that no man will ever do. We can do ANYTHING!

We can do anything, but here's the caveat ladies, we need to do it better. We always have. We can hang with the boys. We can climb the ladder. We can publish our work, we can engineer, we can design, but we will need to do it better than the man beside us to be relevant. I'm proposing we do better work and we do it with the heart of woman, as well. Friends, we were created to create. We were given life to be life givers. We are biologically constructed to nurture the helpless and hungry. Specifically, newborns, but the scope of influence is as broad as we allow, in application.

Don't work like a man, work like a woman. Be better because you bring your heart to the table. Rise higher because you uplift those without a voice.

I did not write a book about Akron to make money. I wrote a book about Akron to inspire families to spend time together in the beautiful places near their home. I wrote a book about Akron to show my children that they can finish a project, if even, ten years later. I wrote a book that I hoped would inspire time for families to be together, in some ways strengthening families. Selfishly, I want that for my children too. I want peers for them that inspire and encourage. I want to see the area thrive. All this, I wanted from a children's book. Imagine a fashion platform, a lifestyle platform of Chanel's grandure! The positive influence she could have shared with the world!

We cannot reduce moral ambiguity to a mere mention of the "elephant in the room". We cannot pretend that we bring the same qualities to the table as men. We bring more. Own your heart, ladies. Own your emotions. Let them fuel your passions. Bring your bossom to the fight and win!