What is Eros? And How is it Relevant to Our Work as BPW?

Equality for women is not just about votes, pay, and who can do what job in or out of the home. It’s also about the insidious ways that living in our own bodies is corralled, organized, mandated, and circumscribed by the patriarchal culture that dominates most of the world.

Particularly frightening to that power structure is the power of eros, which encompasses passion in all of its incarnations: for work, for advocacy, for art, between family members and friends. It is the root of all the things we feel strongly about and is the source of power, knowledge, replenishment, and our capacity for joy and creativity. It has, unfortunately, in most cultures, been reduced to things relating to sex.

We are not going to talk about sex here.

The brilliant and insightful British feminist Audre Lorde (1934-1992) gave a lecture in the early 80s that she later turned into an essay, which is included in her book “Sister Outsider” (1984). (You may recall me recommending this book back in February.)

The essay, Uses of the Erotic, the Erotic as Power, is a manifesto for taking back the primal power of eros. Look at that word; it is rooted in man. Then remember that throughout history, the vast majority of manifestos have been written by men, even the Humanist one (which was ostensibly about the agency and potential of all humans) included no women in its creation.

The most famous one in the US includes the word “all” in its opening explanation of what it is and who it is for, but it was understood at that time that “all” meant people like those who wrote it: land-owning, privileged, cis-gender, heterosexual, white men.

While the Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal” none but those listed above were included in “all”.

Excluded were:

• women
• people of color, especially Black people, who were enslaved
• Indigenous peoples, who were murdered or “civilized’
• the mentally or physically disabled
• the poor
• those whose choice of how to live deviated even slightly from what this group thought of as appropriate.

I’m sure I’m leaving out many groups, but you get the picture.

The Declaration promises freedom of religion at a time when nothing was acceptable but their version of Anglo-Saxon Protestant Christianity. America did not elect its first Catholic president (JFK) until 1960. And even then, many voted against him, believing the first loyalty of Catholics was to the Pope, making it impossible for them to govern this nation independently. America elected its first Black president (Obama) only in 2008. And, in stark contrast to most of the world’s developed nations, America has never had a woman president and only had a female VP (Harris) in 2021.

None of this is accidental.

All of it was written into our foundational manifesto and its related documents then and over most of the next 250 years. And all of it deliberately disenfranchises women as well as any concept of eros or passion, relegating it to the confines of sex, which was not discussed in polite company.

Yet even that was regulated in the interests of men. The “missionary position,” which offers far less pleasure to many women than other options, was the only socially acceptable option. When to have sex was entirely the man’s decision – and woe to the woman who dared to say “I’m exhausted from caring for our seven children and the house and the animals, could we wait until tomorrow, please?”

Women who cheated were ostracized (or worse). The men they were with were chastised for breaking the religious bonds of matrimony, but often privately congratulated for “getting some on the side.”

Unmarried women who got pregnant were treated even worse, but the men (without whom we all know they could not have gotten pregnant) were free to abandon the woman and their child with little to no consequence, a decision that usually left her and the child poor and in danger. The list of “double standards,” all of which favor men, and many of which exist in some form today, goes on and on.

The power of eros is routinely not only ignored but deliberately stamped out because it is the power that made women force their ways into universities, athletics, physical pursuits, and other fields for which they were “unsuited.” It is the passion that made enslaved persons demand their freedom, and then their social equality (sadly, an ongoing struggle to this day). It is the craving of all who patriarchal society deems “less than” or “other” to be treated with fairness, justice, and equality.

Lorde’s manifesto includes the following:

The very word erotic comes from the Greek word eros, the personification of love in all its aspects – born of Chaos, and personifying creative power and harmony. When I speak of the erotic, then, I speak of it as an assertion of the lifeforce of women; of that creative energy empowered, the knowledge and use of which we are now reclaiming in our language, our history, our dancing, our loving, our work, our lives.

…It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work. To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society. But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide their own destinies.

…Of course, women so empowered are dangerous. So we are taught to separate the erotic demand from the most vital areas of our lives other than sex. And the lack of concern for the erotic root and satisfactions of our work is felt in our disaffection from so much of what we do. For instance, how often do we truly love our work even at its most difficult.

As we know, “women so empowered are dangerous.” Or at least they’re frightening to and thus have been demonized by those in power who have been, throughout history, men.

A glance at the history of the so-called witch trials here and elsewhere (I use the phrase so-called because there was nothing about them that had anything to do with a trial and no human is able to bring on a drought or create a bad harvest, no matter what you call her) shows us that women (who made up 90% of those so charged) who lived outside the guidelines proscribed by men – those who were healers, progressives, outspoken, uninterested in marriage or children (sometimes simply unable to bear children), midwives, physically or mentally different, etc., were the ones most often accused of witchcraft. The reason for their behavior? Eros. Usually expressed as a passionate desire for something not available to them.

A major element of BPW’s mission is to advocate for women and girls worldwide to have access to the pursuit of their own passions – of their own excellence – in their careers as well as their personal and communal lives.

Much of the work of NFBPWC focuses on the lives of women living in the United States of America – the nation founded on that profoundly un-equal equality – and the fact that we, in 2026, still need a committee dedicated to passing the ERA (enshrining in the Constitution the radical idea that it should apply equally to all) which was first introduced in Congress in 1923, passed in 1972, and remains unratified, and a committee designed to encourage equality for and connection with members of the LGBTQ+ community, illustrates how entrenched this inequality is.

It’s woven into the fabric of our nation so thoroughly that even those most interested in change sometimes cannot see it. (Find a timeline for the ERA Amendment here, and one for LGBTQ+ history here.)

Lorde reminds us that over and over that from birth to death, we come across “many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise. The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling [and that] we have been taught to suspect this resource, vilified, abused, and devalued within western society…

“It is a short step from there to the false belief that only by the suppression of the erotic within our lives and consciousness can women be truly strong. But that strength is illusory, for it is fashioned within the context of male models of power [however, when we are] in touch with the erotic, [we] become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to [us], such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.”

Let’s go forward into our 2026-2028 term determined to excavate, elevate, and access the power of eros each of us possesses in order to continue the work our mission requires of us.

Lisa Dicksteen
NFBPWC Virtual

Hello NFBPWC members,

My name is Ágatha Barreto, and I am truly honored to serve as your Public Relations Chair for the 2026–2028 term.

Throughout my career, I've seen how communication builds trust, strengthens communities, and creates opportunities by bringing people together across cultures, professions, and generations.

Originally from Brazil, I have called the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area home since 2024. My American husband and I are building our life together there, while I continue my career in strategic communications, public relations, stakeholder engagement, and external affairs.

Relocating to the United States has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, both personally and professionally.

Over the past 15 years, I have had the privilege of helping more than 150 clients across the legal, healthcare, education, technology, and nonprofit sectors strengthen their reputation, communicate with clarity, and build lasting relationships with their audiences. My work has included executive communications, institutional positioning, media relations, branding, digital strategy, and business development.

Lifelong learning has always been an important part of my journey. I hold degrees in Corporate Communications, Law, and Business Development. Earlier this year, I had the privilege of speaking at the BPW International Leaders' Summit in New York, followed by presenting at the NFBPWC Biennial Conference in Raleigh, where many of us had the opportunity to meet.

Although I am new to the National Federation, I have been part of the BPW movement for more than three years through BPW Curitiba, my home club in Brazil. Joining the Board feels less like the beginning of a journey and more like the continuation of one that began there several years ago, alongside Leia Cordeiro and Alison Lubascher.

That connection feels even more meaningful because my friend and fellow BPW Curitiba member, Izadora Letchakoski, now serves as BPW International's Young BPW Representative. This continuity has made joining NFBPWC feel even more special.

What drew me most to NFBPWC is its remarkable legacy. For more than a century, this organization has created opportunities for women to lead, grow professionally, and support one another. I believe that strong communication is one of the most powerful ways to preserve that legacy while also helping new generations discover its value.

As Public Relations Chair, my goal is to help strengthen the visibility of NFBPWC by creating practical communication resources for our clubs, supporting membership growth initiatives, highlighting the meaningful work already happening throughout the federation, and building a stronger, more consistent national presence.

From my very first interactions with NFBPWC, I have felt warmly welcomed by this extraordinary community. Thank you for the opportunity to serve. I am excited for what we can accomplish together and look forward to helping tell the next chapter of NFBPWC's remarkable story.

Ágatha Barretto
Chair Public Relations
prchair@nfbpwc.org

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Women’s Equality Day, celebrated annually on August 26th, commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment, which legally secured most American women the right to vote.

This historic milestone was the culmination of a grueling, 72-year political struggle that officially began at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. While the amendment declared that the right to vote could not be denied on account of sex, it was not an immediate victory for all women.

For decades, state-level voter suppression tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests disenfranchised millions of women of color. The true expansion of the franchise required subsequent civil rights victories, proving that the 19th Amendment was a foundational catalyst rather than the final destination for political equality.

The suffrage movement was propelled by iconic leaders alongside lesser-known pioneers whose strategic brilliance reshaped American democracy. While Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton remain household names, trailblazers like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and Mary Ann Shadd Cary organized critical intersections of race and gender, advocating fiercely for Black women's enfranchisement.

A lesser-known fact of this era is that the suffragists were incredibly media-savvy; they founded their own printing presses, published newspapers, and even wore distinct color palettes—purple, white, and gold—to create a visual brand that dominated public spaces.

Furthermore, the final victory hinged on a single, unexpected moment: 24-year-old Tennessee representative Harry Burn changed his decisive vote to "yes" only after receiving a letter from his mother telling him to "be a good boy" and vote for suffrage.

Today, honoring this legacy requires moving beyond commemoration and into active, everyday civic participation.

A single individual can honor the suffragists by safeguarding the ballot box by:

• Volunteering as a local poll worker
• Participating in voter registration drives
• And consistently voting in municipal and school board elections where policy directly impacts communities.

Beyond voting, you can champion systemic equality by mentoring early-career

 women in your industry, supporting women-owned businesses, and advocating for pay transparency within your workplace.

True systemic change does not always require monumental status; it is built through the deliberate, daily choices of individuals who refuse to let hard-won progress stall.

Alexandria Jackson-Ward
Chair Nominations
nominations@nfbpwc.org

Mentoring: Walking Beside One Another

Every stage of life brings new questions.

Some arrive as we begin our careers. Others come when we change professions, move to a new community, take on leadership, retire, or discover that the path we expected is no longer the one before us.

At each of these moments, having someone who listens, asks thoughtful questions, and shares experience without taking away our independence can make all the difference.

It is therefore with great enthusiasm that I begin serving as Chair of the NFBPWC Mentoring Standing Committee. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with members across our organization as we continue building a mentoring culture that encourages confidence, curiosity, and lifelong learning.

During the past 18 months, I have had the privilege of mentoring twenty-seven individuals directly and many others through workshops, conversations, and collaborative projects. One lesson has become very clear: mentoring is never about creating followers. It is about helping people become the authors of their own lives.

A mentor does not provide all the answers.

Nor is mentoring about finding someone a job, opening every door, or solving every problem.

While mentors may sometimes introduce opportunities or share their networks, the true purpose of mentoring is much deeper. It is to help another person better understand themselves, recognize their strengths, navigate periods of change, and make thoughtful decisions about the direction they wish to take.

Good mentoring asks questions before offering advice.

It encourages reflection before action.

It builds confidence rather than dependence.

Most importantly, it reminds people that while others can illuminate the path, each individual must ultimately choose and walk it for themselves.

I also believe that mentoring flourishes through intergenerational conversation.

Every generation brings something valuable. Those with experience carry lessons learned through success, failure, resilience, and perseverance. Younger generations contribute fresh perspectives, new technologies, different cultural experiences, and the willingness to challenge assumptions that no longer serve us. When these perspectives meet with mutual respect, both mentor and mentee grow.

Mentoring is therefore never a one-way exchange. It is a partnership built on listening, trust, curiosity, and shared learning.

As we look toward the coming biennium, one of my goals is to strengthen mentoring throughout NFBPWC by supporting both mentors and mentees. We will explore practical approaches to mentoring, discuss what makes mentoring relationships successful, and provide guidance for those who are mentoring for the first time as well as those seeking a mentor.

Equally important, we will explore what it means to be an active mentee. Successful mentoring requires commitment from both people. Curiosity, openness to feedback, thoughtful preparation, and a willingness to act on new insights are just as important as the experience a mentor brings.

One idea has guided my own mentoring for many years. Life asks each of us to balance two worlds: the realm of dreams and the realm of the possible.

Dreams inspire us to imagine what might be. Practical wisdom helps us understand the steps required to get there. Effective mentoring does not ask people to abandon either. Instead, it helps them build the bridge between aspiration and action, encouraging them to pursue meaningful goals while remaining grounded in thoughtful planning, resilience, and continuous learning.

That bridge looks different for every individual, because every journey is unique.

As we begin this new committee together, I invite every member of NFBPWC to consider becoming part of our mentoring community—whether as a mentor, a mentee, or, as is often the case, both. Each of us has something to learn, and each of us has something to share.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve in this role. I look forward to working with you as we continue building a mentoring culture that strengthens individuals, enriches our organization, and empowers women to navigate change with confidence, purpose, and hope.

Together, let us continue walking beside one another as we build the next generation of leaders.

Nermin K. Ahmad
Chair Mentoring
mentoring@NFBPWC.org

Is your committee or affiliate in need of funding for a special event?

That’s what we do – we financially support BPW committee and affiliate activities. Email us at legacyfundchair@nfbpwc.org for the application.

Did you attend the NFBPWC Biennial Conference in person?

Each affiliate (Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina, New York City, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virtual, Washington) will be reimbursed $500 for each of up to two members in good standing, who attended the conference in person to offset their expenses. Contact your affiliate President or Treasurer to inquire about details.

The current Value of our Investment Portfolio, of June 26, 2026, is $264,586.73.

At our last meeting:

• At the NFBPWC Executive Committee’s request, $25,000 was transferred to NFBPWC checking to support the NFBPWC Biennial Conference.
• The committee approved the $25,000 transfer with the understanding that a Lessons-Learned report and a final financial report for the Biennial Conference would be completed and that any funds not used would be returned to the Legacy Fund.
• The NFBPWC Executive Committee requested forgiveness of the $10,000 loan transferred in 2025 to support the NFBPWC Biennial Conference because the funds are needed for operating costs due to low attendance.
• The committee approved forgiving the $10,000 loan.

Are you interested in being part of this committee?

Learn more by contacting Deb Fisher, Chair, or any of our members: Barbara Bozeman, Jo Naylor, Megan Shellman-Rickard and Sandy Thompson.

We meet approximately four times per year on Zoom and would love to have more members involved.

Deborah Fischer
Chair Legacy Fund
legacyfundchair@nfbpwc.org

I am honored to serve as the National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs’ Finance Chair for 2026–2028.

I currently serve as the Washington State Treasurer, a role that has strengthened my commitment to sound financial stewardship, transparency, and accountability. I believe financial reporting should be clear, accurate, and accessible, ensuring our members have confidence in how our resources are managed.

With a background in business analysis and financial oversight, I enjoy creating organized systems that support informed decision-making and long-term sustainability. I look forward to working with our leadership team to promote fiscal responsibility while supporting the mission and continued success of NFBPWC.

I am excited to collaborate with members across the country and contribute to an organization that empowers women to lead, advocate, and make a difference in their communities.

Rosalind Scott
Chair Finance
finance@nfbpwc.org

I am pleased to be serving as your Bylaws and Resolutions Chair for this coming term.

I have served on this committee in the past, so I am familiar with what is needed. In addition, I am a member of the National Association of Parliamentarians and currently serve as the Parliamentarian for the California Federation of Business and Professional Women. I have also served as Parliamentarian for the National Federation and as the Chief Parliamentarian for an International Congress.

The reason that we have bylaws and use parliamentary procedure is to ensure that all members are treated fairly and equally. The majority rules, but we ensure that the minority are heard.

For that reason, I ask that every federation and affiliate send me a copy of their bylaws.

Sandy Thompson
Chair Bylaws & Resolutions
bylaws@nfbpwc.org

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S CLUBS (NFBPWC)

ADVOCACY STATEMENT 2026 - 2028

NFBPWC will employ several education, advocacy, monitoring, and tracking strategies to meet the following priorities:

The Alice Paul Equal Rights Amendment shall stand first and foremost above all other items of the advocacy platform until Equal Rights have been guaranteed in the United States Constitution – i.e. “Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Human Rights: recognition that women’s rights are human rights.

• Support
• The Alice Paul Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
• Passage of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
• Equal rights for historically marginalized groups.
• Policies that promote justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).
• Fair and equal access to education, including sufficient funding and a safe learning environment.
• Policies and practices that promote environmental sustainability.
• Empower and enhance the well-being of military-affiliated women.
• Humane treatment of women who are arrested, detained, or incarcerated.
• Privacy rights of women.
• Protection of human rights and equitable treatment of all migrants.
• Universal background checks for all firearm purchases and other gun sense measures to protect lives and ensure safety.
• Protection of our national and state democratic system of government and our Constitutional rights.
• Eradicate Domestic Violence, stalking, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and discrimination.
• Oppose human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and all forms of slavery.

Economic Equity and Justice

• Support the elimination of Forced Arbitration as the sole means of dispute resolution.
• Support and promote:
• Equal opportunities in the workplace and corporate boards through education, training, and career advancement.
• Capital and contracting opportunities for women-owned or women-led enterprises.
• Access to paid sick, family, and medical leave.
• Quality, affordable dependent care
• Safe, affordable, and attainable housing.
• Fair and equitable treatment of employees and contractors in regard to wages and work hours.
• Government fiscal policies that promote our platform.

Health Equity and Justice

• Support for reproductive justice and access to affordable and effective reproductive healthcare.
• Elimination of racial and gender bias in medical research.
• Funding for women’s and girl’s health issues.
• Prevention of discrimination against pregnancy and infant care in the workplace.
• Ensure workplace safety and improvement of PPE for women
• Ensure access to mental health coverage and services.
• Ensure access to affordable and quality care for all.

Adopted July 18, 2026

Raleigh, NC

The Other Way Through: Equality is Not Only Argued, it is Earned

August 26 carries two anniversaries. In 1920 it is the day the Nineteenth Amendment was certified. In 1930 it is the day BPW International was founded in Geneva, at the initiative of Dr. Lena Madesin Phillips, who had founded this federation eleven years before that. The date the country marks as Women’s Equality Day is the same date our own global movement chose for its beginning. The women who built this organization did not wait for the law to settle before they went and organized the world into a movement and a sisterhood that we know as BPW.

BPW was among the first women’s organizations in the country to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1937. Nearly ninety years later the amendment is still not settled law, and in the interval, we have watched protections that, decades ago, we celebrated as being permanent, become contested again.

Anyone who assumed the line only moves in one direction has been corrected. Some days it feels as though we went to sleep in 2026 and woke up in 1955.

The question is not whether we keep advocating. We will, and we must. The question is what we are doing with the second lever, the one that does not depend on a legislature, a court, or a vote we do not control. That lever is indispensability.

Advocacy defends what we were granted, but enterprise builds what cannot be withdrawn.

Our own record makes the case better than any argument I could construct. When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, he handed the first pen to Dr. Minnie Miles, the national president of BPW. He did that because BPW had done the work across four decades: the classification of women’s skills, the state legislative groundwork, the research, the testimony, the sustained presence in rooms where the subject was decided. The pen followed the expertise. It continues to work in that order even to this day. But the pens handed out today are not given by right. They are earned and earning one earns the seat where the next law gets written.

The same opening is in front of us now, on a much larger scale. The world is generating new problems faster than existing institutions can solve them. Supply chains are being rerouted around geopolitical risk. Capital is moving into markets that most Western firms still do not fully understand. Artificial intelligence is dismantling the middle of the organizational chart. Energy, water, food security, elder care, and the financing of all four sit wide open. Each of those is an unmet market with buyers already waiting, and no rule exists anywhere that determines who founds the companies that will serve them. Why not us?

Much of the business architecture we operate inside was designed for a market that no longer exists and a workforce that no longer exists. Someone will rebuild it. For every great shift that led to a business renaissance, from the Industrial Revolution to this AI revolution, opportunities are constantly emerging, and these opportunities are ours for the taking. The women I know have run careers, households, budgets, and communities at the same time, under constraint, without adequate resources, and on deadline. Call that a hardship story if you like. I prefer to see it as operating experience, and it is precisely the capability that a broken model requires. And right now, the world is a broken model waiting for us to reimagine the way forward.

We do not need permission to become indispensable.

None of this happens alone, and it does not happen among women only. Any  strategy that writes off half the decision makers in a market is a poor strategy. Men are our clients, our investors, our suppliers, our referral sources, and in a great many cases they have been our most effective advocates. Shared purchasing lowers cost. Shared supplier networks harden fragile supply chains. Shared client relationships turn a small firm into a credible bidder on work it could never win alone. And commercial opportunity is enhanced by our social connection.

Collaboration is a commercial instrument before it is a social one.

Then there is the most powerful and portable asset available to all of us. Writing the policy paper and publishing the position. Taking the interview and positioning ourselves to be interviewed. Testifying before the committee. Building the framework that other people will need. Expertise travels with you across borders, sectors, and economic cycles, and it holds its value while everything around it is being renegotiated. For me, this philosophy has been the basis of my entire career journey as a businesswoman, founder, and humanitarian.

Expertise is the one credential that no court can reverse and no election can repeal.

When our expertise is built and shared consistently, the outcomes we normally lobby for begin arriving by another route. Boards recruit for the subject they are missing, and the woman who owns that subject gets the call. Promotions follow the person an organization cannot afford to lose because her expertise, knowledge, and perspective are too valuable to disregard. Clients choose the firm that solves the problem in front of them, and no one convenes a meeting about the founder’s gender before signing the contract when that contract leads to impact to their bottom line. I learned this lesson building my career in one of the most stereotypically difficult regions of the world. The Middle East. Establish yourself as an innovator, problem solver and contributor, people, enterprises and governments stop seeing a gender and they start seeing you as a critical asset.

When you are the answer, the conversation stops being about you and starts being with you.

This does not replace the law. Statutory protection matters, judicial support matters, and enforcement matters more than either, because a right that no one enforces does not protect anyone. Credit access, contract enforcement, health, safety, and equal pay are legislative questions, and they are settled by the people who hold office. That brings me to the part no business strategy can substitute for. Our voices have to be heard, and our votes have to be cast, in the local races as much as the national ones, in the school board meeting and the zoning hearing and the statehouse, where most of the decisions that shape a small business are actually made. Turnout is the cheapest leverage available to us, and too often we leave it unused.

Voting is the floor, however. The ceiling is holding the office yourself. Our first national president, Gail Laughlin, was elected to the Maine legislature in 1929 and later to the state senate, where she sponsored the bills that raised the legal marriage age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, stopped husbands from committing their wives to institutions without a medical opinion, and put women on juries. She did not achieve any of that from outside the building. She went inside. Everything I have argued here qualifies a woman for that seat. The woman who has rerouted a supply chain understands trade policy. The woman who has met a payroll understands tax policy. The woman who built the solution understands the regulation better than the person drafting it. Put your name on the ballot for the school board, the borough council, the county commission, the statehouse. A district with a problem to solve will elect the person who can solve it, and that necessity does not stop to consider gender.

In 1921 this federation adopted its emblem, and among the five symbols inside the golden circle our founders placed a ship of commerce. They chose it to mark the entrance of women into business. One year after the vote was won, two years before the Equal Rights Amendment was even written, the women who came before us put commerce at the center of the design. They understood where the argument would eventually be settled.

The future of business cannot be built without us. Our work is to make that obvious.

Larisa B. Miller
NFBPWC Virtual

The Other Way Through: Equality is Not Only Argued, it is Earned

August 26 carries two anniversaries. In 1920 it is the day the Nineteenth Amendment was certified. In 1930 it is the day BPW International was founded in Geneva, at the initiative of Dr. Lena Madesin Phillips, who had founded this federation eleven years before that. The date the country marks as Women’s Equality Day is the same date our own global movement chose for its beginning. The women who built this organization did not wait for the law to settle before they went and organized the world into a movement and a sisterhood that we know as BPW.

BPW was among the first women’s organizations in the country to endorse the Equal Rights Amendment, in 1937. Nearly ninety years later the amendment is still not settled law, and in the interval, we have watched protections that, decades ago, we celebrated as being permanent, become contested again.

Anyone who assumed the line only moves in one direction has been corrected. Some days it feels as though we went to sleep in 2026 and woke up in 1955.

The question is not whether we keep advocating. We will, and we must. The question is what we are doing with the second lever, the one that does not depend on a legislature, a court, or a vote we do not control. That lever is indispensability.

Advocacy defends what we were granted, but enterprise builds what cannot be withdrawn.

Our own record makes the case better than any argument I could construct. When President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963, he handed the first pen to Dr. Minnie Miles, the national president of BPW. He did that because BPW had done the work across four decades: the classification of women’s skills, the state legislative groundwork, the research, the testimony, the sustained presence in rooms where the subject was decided. The pen followed the expertise. It continues to work in that order even to this day. But the pens handed out today are not given by right. They are earned and earning one earns the seat where the next law gets written.

The same opening is in front of us now, on a much larger scale. The world is generating new problems faster than existing institutions can solve them. Supply chains are being rerouted around geopolitical risk. Capital is moving into markets that most Western firms still do not fully understand. Artificial intelligence is dismantling the middle of the organizational chart. Energy, water, food security, elder care, and the financing of all four sit wide open. Each of those is an unmet market with buyers already waiting, and no rule exists anywhere that determines who founds the companies that will serve them. Why not us?

Much of the business architecture we operate inside was designed for a market that no longer exists and a workforce that no longer exists. Someone will rebuild it. For every great shift that led to a business renaissance, from the Industrial Revolution to this AI revolution, opportunities are constantly emerging, and these opportunities are ours for the taking. The women I know have run careers, households, budgets, and communities at the same time, under constraint, without adequate resources, and on deadline. Call that a hardship story if you like. I prefer to see it as operating experience, and it is precisely the capability that a broken model requires. And right now, the world is a broken model waiting for us to reimagine the way forward.

We do not need permission to become indispensable.

None of this happens alone, and it does not happen among women only. Any strategy that writes off half the decision makers in a market is a poor strategy. Men are our clients, our investors, our suppliers, our referral sources, and in a great many cases they have been our most effective advocates. Shared purchasing lowers cost. Shared supplier networks harden fragile supply chains. Shared client relationships turn a small firm into a credible bidder on work it could never win alone. And commercial opportunity is enhanced by our social connection.

Collaboration is a commercial instrument before it is a social one.

Then there is the most powerful and portable asset available to all of us. Writing the policy paper and publishing the position. Taking the interview and positioning ourselves to be interviewed. Testifying before the committee. Building the framework that other people will need. Expertise travels with you across borders, sectors, and economic cycles, and it holds its value while everything around it is being renegotiated. For me, this philosophy has been the basis of my entire career journey as a businesswoman, founder, and humanitarian.

Expertise is the one credential that no court can reverse and no election can repeal.

When our expertise is built and shared consistently, the outcomes we normally lobby for begin arriving by another route. Boards recruit for the subject they are missing, and the woman who owns that subject gets the call. Promotions follow the person an organization cannot afford to lose because her expertise, knowledge, and perspective are too valuable to disregard. Clients choose the firm that solves the problem in front of them, and no one convenes a meeting about the founder’s gender before signing the contract when that contract leads to impact to their bottom line. I learned this lesson building my career in one of the most stereotypically difficult regions of the world. The Middle East. Establish yourself as an innovator, problem solver and contributor, people, enterprises and governments stop seeing a gender and they start seeing you as a critical asset.

When you are the answer, the conversation stops being about you and starts being with you.

This does not replace the law. Statutory protection matters, judicial support matters, and enforcement matters more than either, because a right that no one enforces does not protect anyone. Credit access, contract enforcement, health, safety, and equal pay are legislative questions, and they are settled by the people who hold office. That brings me to the part no business strategy can substitute for. Our voices have to be heard, and our votes have to be cast, in the local races as much as the national ones, in the school board meeting and the zoning hearing and the statehouse, where most of the decisions that shape a small business are actually made. Turnout is the cheapest leverage available to us, and too often we leave it unused.

Voting is the floor, however. The ceiling is holding the office yourself. Our first national president, Gail Laughlin, was elected to the Maine legislature in 1929 and later to the state senate, where she sponsored the bills that raised the legal marriage age for girls from thirteen to sixteen, stopped husbands from committing their wives to institutions without a medical opinion, and put women on juries. She did not achieve any of that from outside the building. She went inside. Everything I have argued here qualifies a woman for that seat. The woman who has rerouted a supply chain understands trade policy. The woman who has met a payroll understands tax policy. The woman who built the solution understands the regulation better than the person drafting it. Put your name on the ballot for the school board, the borough council, the county commission, the statehouse. A district with a problem to solve will elect the person who can solve it, and that necessity does not stop to consider gender.

In 1921 this federation adopted its emblem, and among the five symbols inside the golden circle our founders placed a ship of commerce. They chose it to mark the entrance of women into business. One year after the vote was won, two years before the Equal Rights Amendment was even written, the women who came before us put commerce at the center of the design. They understood where the argument would eventually be settled.

The future of business cannot be built without us. Our work is to make that obvious.

Larisa B. Miller
NFBPWC Virtual