09 May Shaping Our View of the Female Force

Girls rock. This is fact. My viewpoints have been shaped by some incredible women in my life including my mother for her selfless generosity, my grandmothers for their unrelenting work ethic, my first female career mentor for her social dynamism, and our current parent company CEO for her fearlessness.

It’s Mother’s Day this week, and naturally this provides a great occasion to honor powerful forces in my life. My mother has been an inspiration in so many ways. She is not only a beautiful person, but she also gives to others freely, and is selflessly generous (especially to her family, helpers, and anyone in second degree of separation). There is no one more caring and thoughtful. As a fierce and protective Mama bear, she would be clear about boundaries and go to great lengths to ensure that we played on an even playing field. Always sacrificing her own time, comfort, and needs, she will go to extremes to help us in anything that we need. As long as I recall, throughout my childhood, she had worked in school administration. As a parent myself, I appreciate the challenges of time balancing, and my mother always pulled this off seamlessly and gracefully while being insanely busy. She has always been extremely resourceful. Whether it was hard core research for family needs, school planning, children’s literature research, or career information, my mom was able to curate a host of data to allow us to make informed decisions. She is supportive and guiding, empowering and nurturing – a dynamic that we can all aspire to.

I think the love for working runs in our family. “I had to rely on myself, not that good for nothing b–” my grandmother declared when speaking of my Ph.D educated “inventor” grandfather. My grandmothers Sarah and Esther were ambitious in their own time as well. We’re talking a different generation, as they were born in 1906 and 1913, when women certainly didn’t take to the workforce en masse. They worked full time as an RN and in textiles in San Francisco, and one of them worked until she was in her mid-eighties. Lessons of hard work were revealed in stories and advice.

The first female role model I had in post-college professional life was a woman who had tremendous intelligence, presence, and relationship savviness. Her background was a physicist at NASA, McKinsey strategy consulting, art/design school, graduate business school, and an ad agency founder. Quite eclectic. She was the SVP of Strategic Planning at Twentieth Century Fox, and I reported to her directly as a 21 year-old newbie. Relationships are critical in the entertainment industry, and she was one of the most adept people who could navigate treacherous situations, while overwhelmingly influencing others to work in partnership. And her strategic analyses were brilliantly derived and delivered. Because she had a genius level left and right brain, her value was unparalleled. What I learned most from her was to trust in myself and not underestimate my place. She also constantly encouraged me to expose myself to people and experiences that will help me grow. She was a true mentor who was a huge contributor to my career advancement.

Source: Orange County Register, Photo by DREW A. KELLEY

Julia Huang, at the helm of our current holding company, has been a pioneer in every sense of the word. Winning a host of awards for innovation and business entrepreneurship, Julia has allowed us to flourish with empowered freedom. Julia represents a true visionary leader, who outlines a broad vision, but who trusts her sergeants to implement with flexibility. She also provides vast resources and guidance along the way, and challenges her teams to rise above the status quo and mediocrity. Fearless is a word that embodies her strong points of view and determination to carve new pathways into non-traditional areas. I don’t think I’ve seen many female renegades quite like her, with a savvy sense of style, design, and human-ness, but with a fierce sense of ideals and standards.

I have a daughter who I desperately want to grow into a confident, ambitious, and empowered young woman. It’s so important to me that she feels free to pursue anything that she wants in life and has limitless opportunities. I’m proud that she chose to do her sixth grade class TED Talk on the topic of women in media. She adores the recent role models such as Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Rey and Jyn Erso (Star Wars), and Merida (Brave). Reading her TED speech script the other night, I was amused that she observes that, “Little girls aspire to be princesses, who spend documented time doing cleaning, grooming, singing, and talking to animals…these things are useless, where instead they could be following their passions and doing something meaningful.” We just watched the documentary Miss Representation, and I Iove our emerging shared understanding. Whether we pay attention or not, these girls are carefully observing us, and our actions will impact their points of view. I often tell her that Girls Rock, and I know she believes it. I do hope that she will have a slate of role models, peers, and supporters that will shape her. We can all be responsible for embodying this powerful female force that helps others along the way.