Tag: Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own: Why we need sacred spaces in order to create.

by Chantal Pierrat

A few months ago, we had a feng shui master and his wife over for dinner. His wife and I were talking about our creative writing ventures and, when the master overheard, he chimed in with the simple question, “Where is your writing space? I love to see creative spaces.” I stuttered around an answer. The kitchen counter after the kids are asleep? A stolen afternoon at a coffee shop with thirty other coffee drinkers? The lobby of the rec center while my kids swim?

His look bored into my soul. He said, “Your writing will never take you seriously if you don’t have a sacred space to create in.” In that moment I realized what he was saying was true, but that actually doing something about it felt inconvenient.

“Your writing will never take you seriously if you don’t have a sacred space to create in.”

So I’ve been thinking about it: Does inspiration really squeeze in beside you if she has to contend with the sea of laptops and fancy coffee drinks, table to table with other aspiring creatives? Whether you are seeking to create a poem, a killer investor pitch or high tech breakthrough, if you want to invite inspiration to come visit you need a place for her to sit down. You need a “room of one’s own”, à la Virginia Woolf.

How many of us read A Room of One’s Own in high school or college and said to ourselves, “Right on, sister!” Her small book declares that women need space to tap into their creative power. Like me, you probably thought that when you grew up, you’d insist on the room. It would be a non-negotiable. But as our adult living situation becomes a reality, we concede the space to the distractions around us.

Some never conceded, like my friend and entrepreneur, Renee Israel. Renee is an entrepreneur and cofounder, with her husband Rob, of Doc Popcorn. They both work out of the home and they both have private home offices. When most people were remodeling by tearing down walls for larger living areas, Renee knew that she needed that wall. She insisted on articulated boundaries versus the larger communal space. And with that came intellectual freedom.

I am lucky enough to have an “office” that is shared with my husband, but stacks of to-do’s cover the space: brochures for potential summer camps, permission slips, bills, catalogs and then there’s Will’s desk, which is even more chaotic. When he is sitting at his computer, we chit chat and share, and we interrupt with things like, “Hey, is next Thursday a good day to get the furnace serviced?” My son walks in without a knock to ask if he can have a turn holding the bunny. The humdrum and the wonder have a hard time cohabitating at times. Busy work is worlds away from generative thinking. My office is a place to orchestrate the responsibilities, not the whisperings of my soul.

“My office is a place to orchestrate the responsibilities, not the whisperings of my soul.”

Lately, I’ve been eyeing the potting shed in the back yard. It’s full of straw, torn slip n’ slides, stacked pots, a wasp nest and a weed whacker. All of the that can find another home, I realize. So what is really standing between me and a room of my own? Maybe it’s my own self-doubt, or the fear of taking up space, but I’m getting over that. I may not write the next bestseller, but I just will have more than half an hour without an interruption to my thoughts – that sounds just as delightful. There would be nothing worldly in there, just a writing surface, some cool tchotchkes and creative quotations pinned to the wall. And ventilation. That’s it – all my room needs.

I like to think of it this way: HGTV is full of shows on creating the dream man-cave, but what would a woman-cave look like? Even if the best room of your own you can create is the kitchen counter after the kids are asleep – go for it. Find a talisman, light a candle and tell the others to stay away because inspiration needs a signal for the all-clear. Demand it. Do it for Virginia Woolf and the women who fought for the right. Because when we take up space, we take ourselves and our aspirations seriously. And so do those around us.

Show us your “rooms,” ladies. How do you take up space?

annike Annika Paradise is a freelance writer living in Boulder, Colorado.  Her writing has appeared in Brain Child Magazine as well as various blogs.  She is currently working on an historical fiction novel that takes place during the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado’s mining towns.

We’re Not Waiting 117 Years – Inspiration for International Women’s Day

by Chantal Pierrat

The World Economic Forum predicts it will take until 2133 to achieve gender parity.

Wait… what? The year 2133? That’s 117 years from now, people. Do we really want to wait four generations to achieve what we know will be a world-shifting balance? NO.

This isn’t just about supporting equal pay for women (although it definitely includes that). This year’s campaigns for gender parity make it clear that businesses must harness female talent to really succeed and thrive.

Studies show that organizations most inclusive of women in top management perform up to 35% better than their peers. This study finds that an organization with 30 percent female leaders could add up to 6 percentage points to its net margin.

The bigger picture, then, is to value women equally as leaders – to bring balance to pay grade, yes, but also to respect and value women’s unique talents in the business, economic and political world. In this way we not only ensure that women are able to rise to positions of power, we also encourage men to incorporate more feminine leadership traits into their repertoires, resulting in a more prosperous climate for all.

Here’s what you can do to accelerate the movement. Make the Pledge for Parity. Pledge to call for gender-balanced leadership. Pledge to illuminate paths to leadership for girls and women. Pledge to explode both conscious and unconscious bias and to stay open to new points of view, for yourself, your company and the world.

Are you in?

Keep yourself inspired this International Women’s Day with these wise words from passionate leaders who remind us why equality can’t wait 117 years…

“We are here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.” – Emmeline Pankhurst

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” – Rebecca West

“No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half its citizens.” – Michelle Obama

Margaret Mead

“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse gift will find a fitting place.” – Margaret Mead

Aung Sang Suu Kyi

“In societies where men are truly confident of their own worth, women are not merely tolerated but valued.” – Aung Sang Suu Kyi

Audre Lorde

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” – Audre Lorde

sheryl sandberg

“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.” – Sheryl Sandberg

geraldine ferraro

“We’ve chosen the path to equality, don’t let them turn us around.” – Geraldine Ferraro

virginia woolf

“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.” – Virginia Woolf

10 Influential Quotes from 10 Powerful Women of the 20th Century

by Chantal Pierrat

This is our time to rise and actualize! As women lead the way through an authentic expression of who we are, by leveraging feminine virtues instead of burying them, we will create a more integrated world where the best of the masculine and the feminine work in harmony. At Emerging Women Live you’ll hear from some of the most fantastic women visioneers of our time. These are women who are not afraid to be themselves as they take creative risks or launch BIG ideas into the world.
This post celebrates some of the most brilliant, courageous, authentic women trailblazers of the 20th century. These women’s wisdom inspire and motive us to move forward and continue to challenge the conventional.

1. “The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.”― Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel (1883 – 1971) was the only fashion designer to appear on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. She completely revolutionized the fashion industry by freeing women of corsets and introducing a more comfortable, casual chic look. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product.

 
Image: Amelia Earhart

2. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure , the process is its own reward.”― Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart (1897–1937) was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Her courage and willpower opened the skies to other women. She was also a best-selling author, and she was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots. She was also a member of the National Woman’s Party, and an early supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. In 1937 while attempting to become the first person to fly around the world, Earhart’s plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.

Photo of Ella FITZGERALD

3. “Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” ― Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Fitzgerald (1918–1996) is considered one of the greatest jazz singers of all time. Over the course of her 59-year recording career, she sold 40 million copies of her 70-plus albums, winning countless awards and commendations, including honorary doctorates at Yale and Dartmouth, the National Medal of Arts, and 13 Grammy Awards, including one in 1967 for Lifetime Achievement. In 1979 she was given a Kennedy Center Award for her lifetime in the performing arts.

Simone-de-Beauvoir-web

4. “I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth – and truth rewarded me.” ― Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908 – 1986) was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. In 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex, which quickly became a feminist classic, inspiring women of the 1950s and 1960s to examine their role in culture. In the chapter “Woman: Myth and Reality” of The Second Sex, Beauvoir argued that men had made women the “Other” in society by putting a false aura of “mystery” around them. She argued that men used this as an excuse not to understand women or their problems and not to help them, and that this stereotyping was always done in societies by the group higher in the hierarchy to the group lower in the hierarchy.

Rosa-Parks

5. “Each person must live their life as a model for others.” ― Rosa Parks

 

Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005) was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called “the first lady of civil rights” and “the mother of the freedom movement”.  On December 1, 1955, an unknown seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. This brave woman, Rosa Parks, was arrested and fined for violating a city ordinance, but  her act of defiance marked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement in the United States and ultimately lead to the end of legal segregation in America. Her courage made her an inspiration to freedom-loving people everywhere.

OKeeffe-hands

6. “I feel there is something unexplored about women that only a woman can explore.” ― Georgia O’Keeffe

 

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 –1986) was a prominent  woman painter. Georgia O’Keeffe prevailed in a what was a long time a man’s world, and became a key figure in the American Modern Art. In 1962, O’Keeffe was elected to the fifty-member American Academy of Arts and Letters. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1966. In 1970, when she was 83 years old, a retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The New York critics and collectors recognized her as an artist ahead of her time. Her work hangs today in museums and private collections around the world.

7.  “Odd how the creative power at once brings the whole universe to order.” ―Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) was an English writer, and one of the foremost modernists of the twentieth century. Woolf is a key figure in the modernist literary movement. She is best known for her writings between World War I and World War II including the 1929 essay, “A Room of One’s Own,” and novels Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando. In her work she examined the difficulties that female writers and intellectuals face because men hold disproportionate legal and economic power and the future of women in education and society.

8. “We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was the longest-serving First Lady of the United States, holding the post from 1933 to 1945 during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms in office. She was the first presidential spouse to hold press conferences, write a syndicated newspaper column, and speak at a national convention. As a champion of human rights, she strove to further women’s causes as well as the causes of black people, poor people, and the unemployed. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration’s Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.

9. “True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”  ― Helen Keller

 

Helen Keller (1880–1968) was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. A childhood disease left Helen deaf, mute, and blind. Her story became popular through the dramatic depictions of the play and film The Miracle Worker. Keller campaigned for women’s suffrage and labor rights. She was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1971. Keller wrote a total of 12 published books and several articles.

10.  “Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” ― Margaret Sanger

 

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) was an American birth control activist, sex educator, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger’s efforts contributed to several judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States. Sanger is regarded as a leading figure in the battle for American women’s rights.

Want more? Check out these 10 Badass Quotes from 10 Badass Women:

 

And then join ALL the badasses at our annual Emerging Women Live! Registration is now open HERE.