Let’s Celebrate Women’s Equality Day by Using An Essential Women-Superpower
Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, which guarantees the right of citizens to vote, regardless of sex. But, of course, equality extends beyond voting.
This year, as women navigate the loss of reproductive rights, face unprecedented levels of burnout, and bear the brunt of climate change, Women’s Equality Day feels more like a poignant reminder that there is much more work to do than a celebration.
However, it is the right time to use the superpowers that tend to be associated with the feminine. Chief among them is a propensity to move us all beyond binaries.
Leaders use this superpower when they:
Frame issues as being on a continuum or as shades of gray (rather than black/white)
Surface multiple perspectives before making decisions
Use “Yes and” to build on ideas and create more effective solutions
Zoom out to look at the context and underlying assumptions
To be clear, this superpower doesn’t belong exclusively to women. While nonbinary and trans individuals, people of color, and women are Olympians of the beyond-binary, these superpowers can be yielded by everyone.
Climate change leaders also recognize the cost of binary thinking and the role of beyond-binary solutions.
In All We Can Save, Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson explains, “The same patriarchal power structure that oppresses and exploits girls, women….also wreaks destruction on the natural world. Dominance, supremacy, violence, extractions, egotism, greed…. these hallmarks of patriarchy fuel the climate crisis just as they do inequality, colluding with racism along the way.”
Dr. Wilkinson outlines additional ways we can leverage beyond-binary thinking to improve sustainability:
1. Focus more on making change and less on being in charge
How: Move beyond the need to be right, in control, or win to instead focus on collaboration. This tactic is so powerful that collaboration between competitors improves performance.
Concept in Action: Canadian steel competitors collaborated to reduce CO2 emissions by 25%.
2. Increase investments in climate remedies that address systemic injustices rather than implementing climate remedies that deepen them.
How: Ensure frontline communities are central in this work.
Concept in Action: The Sustainable Development Strategies Group brings indigenous communities and corporate leaders together to create equitable mining agreements needed for renewable energy materials.
We will all need to make this shift if we want to see our sustainability efforts flourish.
Let's honor women by leaning on our superpowers to heal our environment and make the planet hospitable to human life for generations to come.
Kavi is a women-owned small business and a member of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.