Streaming Fitness Platforms in 2019: Worth the Worry?

News about digital fitness streaming services seems to be everywhere, from Goop to Aaptiv to Mirror. Some of the products and services, like Peloton, have gotten so popular that gym and boutique studio owners are starting to get antsy. Is at-home fitness where the market is going? Are the days of sweating it out at a brick-and-mortar gym over?

A majority of people aren’t using any streaming apps or services to work out

A MINDBODY consumer survey in July 2019 took a look at digital trends. About 17% of respondents said they use pre-recorded video apps or services and 7% said they use audio training apps, but a majority (74%) don’t use any.*

Only about 33% of consumers use audio or video streaming as part of their workout routines

Peloton is the favorite at-home option

And what about the big at-home players? Eleven percent of these consumers said they owned at-home fitness equipment with streaming capability. Out of those, 31% own a Peloton product, 17% own a Mirror, 8% own NordicTrack, and 6% own Stairmaster.

The Peloton bike is the most popular streaming equipment among consumers surveyed

Right now, the at-home fitness market still seems to be in the early adopter stage. So what’s all the buzz about Peloton? The company very recently debuted on the NASDAQ stock exchange, and the overall digital fitness market is expected to reach $27 billion by 2022. A July 2019 MINDBODY survey of Peloton users found that many own multiple Peloton products.** 51% own both the bike and treadmill. Many even subscribe to the streaming service as well; 42% of women and 38% of men own the bike, treadmill, and subscribe to the digital streaming service. Satisfaction for the equipment is through the roof; in fact, 98% of respondents are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the bike, and 99% of respondents are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the treadmill.

Peloton users are still attending classes in person⁠—some are attending even more than before

While Peloton users seem to be ride-or-die fans, many of them are still supplementing their at-home workouts with workouts at the gym. In fact, 70% of respondents say they attend a wider variety of in-person classes now that they use Peloton. Community is an important part of working out⁠—even for Peloton purchasers.

• 79% of Peloton users want to feel connected to their community
• 75% prefer to exercise with a friend
• 72% like to participate in in-person group fitness

It is difficult for technology like Peloton, Mirror, or Hydrow to replicate the community found in an in-person indoor cycling or yoga class.

How will digital fitness impact your business?

Gym and fitness studio owners, while you don’t need to fear a technology takeover, you should still be looking into how you can integrate technology into your workout offerings. Tech offers an array of opportunities for your business to evolve and thrive. Keep up with the latest trends and take advantage of new technology to offer the best experience for customers.

Bring your fitness business into the digital age to enhance your brand and in-class experience:

• 58% of consumers feel self-conscious when they try new fitness activities.* Videos can help people new to your fitness modality build confidence. Consider filming tutorial videos for beginners or even stream a version of your class online so new clients know what to expect and can give it a go on their own first. Technology helps them book their first class with confidence.
• Let your members work out with you—even when they’re out of town. Create an audio or video workout that can be done on vacation or when they can’t make it to class. Incorporate a suitcase or other substitutes for equipment your clients have readily available when they’re on-the-go. If you catch recording fever, consider offering more classes online. To learn more about what it takes, check out Sadie Nardini’s episode of The BOLD Show.
• Create an engaging in-studio experience with gamification that attracts and retains clients. With FitMetrix, your clients can track their performance results like heart rate and RPM in real-time and compete within your community.

*MINDBODY. “App User Survey.” July 2019.

**MINDBODY. “Peloton Consumer Survey.” July 2019.

This story was originally published on Mindbodyonline.com in October of 2019. You can find it here.

 

A letter to the class of 2020

“All spring quarter classes will be held virtually for the entirety of the quarter. Faculty will communicate the logistics for these courses prior to the start of the term. In addition, in-person commencement has been postponed and we will look to an alternate form of recognizing our graduates.”

–Letter from President Armstrong, March 16, 7:23 pm

Dear Class of 2020,

Last Friday, my roommate took a look at her calendar and laughed ironically. She had written on March 16, “Amtrak home,” followed by “Colorado trip” and “New Orleans” through the next two weeks. On March 30 were the words “First day of last quarter.” Her calendar serves as a bleak reminder that just a couple weeks ago we were making plans for our last spring break as college seniors — now, we don’t even know when we will see each other again.

My roommates and I left for home Monday morning, thinking we would probably be back in a couple of weeks: an extra week of spring break, and two weeks of online classes. That was the plan. Then Monday night, we got the email that sent that plan — and any other plans — down a drain. All of spring quarter would be online, and graduation would be cancelled.

I didn’t stop crying for a while.

I will admit to being a pretty dramatic person, but I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say this: Today feels like the end of the world. The skies are a dark grey, indicative of an incoming week of heavy rain. Events are getting cancelled left and right. All sports seasons are suspended. The streets are deserted. Trader Joe’s, Target, Vons — all our local stores look like the battleground of a zombie apocalypse. It all feels very dystopian, like a young adult novel. And I’m feeling really, really overwhelmed.

I’m feeling overwhelmed because of how much this virus has changed the regular cadence of everyday life. The effects of the pandemic hit at the most random times, like when I walked into the recreation center, unconsciously started lifting my arm, and saw all the hand scanners covered in black tarp. Or when I drove home to the Bay Area the day they announced the “shelter-in-place” order and, for the first time in my life, didn’t hit any traffic on 880. So many things, big and small, ingrained in our everyday lives that are just … gone. All at once. And, all at once, I realized how much we walk through life expecting —  and relying —  on some things to stay exactly the same.

I’m feeling overwhelmed because of how uncertain our futures look right now, and because of the number of things we didn’t realize would be our last. I think of the first-generation students whose parents just wanted to watch them get their diploma and walk across that stage. I think of the people who are out of jobs right now because the economy is crashing and burning. I wonder if I will even have a job once I graduate. I think of the people who are being discriminated against because of the ignorance and fears of the masses. I think of my roommate, who didn’t realize last Friday would be the last day of her internship working with autistic children at a local school. I think of those children at that local school, many of whom are homeless and rely on school for food and care, who are no longer supported. I think of the students at Cal Poly who rely on financial aid for rent and now don’t know if they can afford basic needs. I think of the senior college athletes who have been playing their sport since they were five, who were told they would be playing for the very last time last week. I think of all the campus teams that worked so hard all year to put on events like Open House and were told all their work was for nothing. This list could go on for pages, and with each news story about the mass homeless populations who remain unaware of the virus or the countries with limited resources that are faced with decisions about who gets to live every day, I am made acutely aware of my privileges.

I am feeling overwhelmed, and I tried very hard to rationalize and be mature about it. I’m lucky, I remind myself. Some people have it so much worse. Then Monday night happened, and frankly, I no longer want to “think of the bigger picture.” Because none of this feels like anything I can rationalize. In the midst of the world ending, graduation felt like the last normal thing to cling onto. Now that rite of passage is gone, too.

What does give me hope, though, is all of you. In the last four years, I have found the most passionate, kind-hearted, ambitious people. Dreamers. Doers. People who will never stop fighting for what they believe in. And whatever happens over the next couple weeks, this is the generation that will rebuild the world into something better than it ever was before. Yes, there are people who are busy stocking up on toilet paper and food without thinking about others. Yes, there are people who are still taking their Cabo trips. But during my time at Cal Poly, I have seen more hope in this graduating class than I could have ever imagined.

I saw it in our rallying cries at the very first Women’s March in 2016, in the protests and town hall meetings after the blackface incident and in the student groups who put on social justice conferences every year. I see it in the journalism majors who have traveled to the Mexican-American border to interview asylum seekers, the engineering majors who take trips to build filtration systems in Thailand and the business majors who have made Cal Poly the first fair-trade certified CSU campus. I continue to see it every single day, in every one of you.

As of now, life really sucks. But the thing about being human is that we always cling to hope that one day, it will get better. And it will get better, but not by itself. It will get better because of all of you, continuing to do what you do best.

Class of 2020, it has been nothing short of an honor learning and growing with you these last four years. We will have enough time to read books, listen to podcasts, bake, make music and in general be better, but today — today it’s okay to grieve. When all of this is over, we will no longer take any of this for granted. We will love each other harder, be stronger and act kinder, because we have gone through the worst, together.

For now, I’ll see all of you on Zoom University. Click to graduate.

 

This story was originally published on The WIB Wire on March 18, 2020. Find it here.

Opinion: On the state of the Orfalea College of Business

*Anjana Melvin is the President of the Cal Poly Women in Business Association and a contributor for The Wire. The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Wire or the Women in Business Association. 

A letter to club leadership, faculty, administration and students of the Orfalea College of Business:

I consider myself very fortunate to attend a university that invests so much in my growth. The Orfalea College of Business (OCOB), whether through its classes, clubs, recruiting events or people, is a large part of why I feel prepared for life after college. I am surrounded by students who work hard, dream big and encourage me to do the same. But while this college boasts that it fosters the world’s future leaders, more and more of our futures seem to be determined by the companies that give this school the most money.

I took Financial Accounting my freshman year, unenthused but prepared to work hard and do well. I ended the quarter with a B, not bad but not excellent and certainly not in a class that I found interesting enough to care about. So imagine my surprise when I get a letter of recommendation from the accounting department a month later. “Dear Anjana,” it said. “You are receiving this email because of your outstanding performance in BUS 214. You may keep the attached letter in your records and can show this to firms in job or internship interviews.”

Outstanding performance? I don’t know when a B was ever considered outstanding, but I was surprised and admittedly impressed to learn from that letter that “Several of the top accounting and business firms view Cal Poly as a ‘preferred school’ […] this means that recruiters from these firms visit regularly and recruit aggressively for our students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.” What I didn’t know at the time was just how aggressive those firms would turn out to be.

“I didn’t consider anything else but accounting because it was drilled into me sophomore year; it’s all I knew. I wish OCOB highlighted more paths to success. If you’re not accounting, it’s not easy.”

-Cal Poly Accounting alumni

I have never considered accounting as a profession for myself. But, the number of times I have heard students and faculty talk about one of the “Big 4” accounting firms — PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG, Deloitte and Ernst & Young (EY) — have been countless. There are rooms in the college named after them. When your eyes inevitably glaze over during lecture, their framed logos are the only things to stare at in some second-floor classrooms. “Accounting” is the sole concentration listed on the side of the business building facing O’Neill Green. It seems like success has become, by OCOB’s definition, accounting — and more specifically the Big 4.

Despite all of this hype and propaganda, too many times I have heard people say they accepted a full-time job at one of the Big 4 firms and realized too late that it wasn’t what they wanted to do anymore. Many didn’t find the work to be intellectually stimulating, and often their internship experiences did not live up to their expectations. But they’re scared, and rightly so, to try anything different because then the safety blanket they were shrouded in for three years would be ripped away from them. What happens to those students? The ones who didn’t find their work fulfilling, but have made a decision they feel they can’t go back on because this is what they’ve been told is the “right” thing to do for four years? Why do they feel like they do not have a choice in the matter? Why have we created this illusion of what a Big 4 job is and equated it to success? OCOB prides itself on having an 84 percent job placement statistic. But if a large portion of that 84 percent is comprised of students halfheartedly starting their careers, how meaningful is this number really?

The best things in life don’t come easy. College and obtaining a job upon graduation are no different. Navigating uncertainty, discovering our purpose and finding a fulfilling opportunity post-grad is all part of the college experience. For people who genuinely want to pursue a career in accounting because they enjoy it, the resources are great. But for people who are on the fence, it has become too easy to just take a Big 4 job because it’s there. And after you start to get sucked in with the company-branded Patagonia fleece jackets and Hydroflasks, there’s almost no way out and only one way forward — to public accounting and to the Big 4.

This narrowed path to success doesn’t always equate to happiness post-grad, either. After talking to Cal Poly accounting alumni currently working at Big 4 companies, many have said that they felt like accounting was decided for them as their concentration before they had the chance to make that decision on their own. Here’s where the intentions of the College of Business can get sticky: OCOB receives such a high proportion of funding from the Big 4 that it has manifested, whether accidentally or on purpose, into a university sales pitch that sells accounting as the end-all be-all concentration to guarantee success. “It fell into my lap,” one alumni who now works at PwC said. “I didn’t consider anything else but accounting because it was drilled into me sophomore year; it’s all I knew. I wish OCOB highlighted more paths to success. If you’re not accounting, it’s not easy.”

It is important to note that some of this is circumstantial. Because of the large number of publicly traded companies between San Francisco and San Jose there is an overwhelming demand for public accountants in the Bay Area. Cal Poly’s proximity makes OCOB a natural hunting ground for these Big 4 firms — and similar situations can be found in schools such as Santa Clara University and the University of California at Santa Barbara. But is our location and a high industry demand justification for the domineering attitude within our college? External factors are relevant, but internally we should be stronger.

We have this obsessive drive to find a job, no matter what that job is, because it feels like everyone else has one. And that is a direct product of the university allowing the disproportionate access and marketing of just four companies to students in a very precarious and important time in their lives.

Each concentration is equally as important to a company as accounting, yet that is not being reflected in the current curriculum and programming. Most jobs also involve utilizing multiple skill sets, but rather than encouraging students to pursue other areas of interest, one of the only opportunities offered by OCOB to expand skill sets comes in the form of a dual concentration— if you ensure that one of those concentrations is accounting.

I know I speak from a position of privilege when I ask you, as students, to dream bigger than what we’re given. Given the cost of education, graduating with a job offer in hand is usually the primary goal of most students, and that goal is not by any means flawed. There are many benefits to taking a Big 4 job, and while I could list them here, the college does a pretty good job of that already. But if you ultimately decide that this path isn’t for you, as uncomfortable as it may be, it’s okay to say no. You will not “fall behind.” This is your life, not a horse race.

We have this obsessive drive to find a job, no matter what that job is, because it feels like everyone else has one. And that is a direct product of the university allowing the disproportionate access and marketing of just four companies to students in a very precarious and important time in their lives. Of course we want job security. Of course we want a promising future. But take a step back and think of the bigger picture — what do you really want your life after graduation to look like?

If you are going to accept an offer with the Big 4 because you genuinely enjoy accounting and want to take advantage of those benefits, perfect. If you are taking the Big 4 route because you need to get from point A to point B, whether that’s moving to a new city, getting a master’s or working in industry for a higher salary two years down the line, that’s also completely valid. But if you are taking that job because you feel like you have no other option, or you have been told there is no other option or because everyone else is doing it, then we have a problem.

Here is our opportunity to create change.

If you are a club leader, encourage your members to create a framework for a successful life. What are their core values? Do the values of the company they want to work or intern for align with their own? Encourage them to find what makes them passionate, and if that isn’t their current career path, at least to look for jobs where they will grow and be happy going into work every day. Do not tell students who look up to you what the “safe” or “smart” thing to do is; objectively list out the pros and cons and have them decide for themselves. Moreover, remember your stakeholders are your members, not just the companies funding your club. No matter what concentration-specific club you are a part of, make it very clear that there is more than one path to success. Some of these large multibillion dollar corporations are great places to work, but they aren’t for everyone. And that’s more than okay.

Faculty, despite the disparity in resources, try to do more to get your students excited about the concentration you teach in. Send out recommendation letters. Bring in more speakers from diverse career paths. If students come to you looking for advice, do not tell them it’s crazy to reject an offer from a huge company. Frankly, that isn’t your call to make. For professors of introductory classes, remember that you are often the very first example of what a future career can look like, and take that responsibility seriously. This college could also greatly benefit from finding a faculty member in each area to champion fundraising. The marketing area receiving a large donation to start the Business Analytics Fellowship last year is a great example of what that could look like.

Administration, there is so much I know you are doing for student success, especially with bringing other companies in for recruitment and cultivating those relationships that ultimately turn into more opportunities. But the disproportionate allocation of resources between concentration areas is far too vast for things to keep going the way they are. There is more to business than accounting, and there is more to accounting than the Big 4. Let’s admit it, this isn’t breaking news. This has been a problem for years — do something about it. If there is an “Executive Director for Accounting Excellence,” there should be one for each concentration. I know it’s easier said than done, but focus on funding for the concentrations that actually need it. Cal Poly students have limitless potential. We are smart. We are hard working. It is rare to find women and men with so much ambition to make something of themselves and help each other up while they’re at it. So it is heartbreaking to watch as so many students doubt their own abilities and instead choose security because you aren’t telling us to dream bigger.

I want to represent a college that not only boasts high job placement rates, but backs them up with students and alumni who are fulfilled in their concentrations and careers. I would rather be at a college that accepts and talks about failure and teaches us how to handle uncertainty rather than glorify paths that are “successful” only because everyone else is doing it. This is not just a college of accountants, but a college of passionate leaders, forward-thinkers and creators who have the ability to go change every corner of the world. All we have to do is tell them they can.

 

 

This story was originally published on The WIB Wire on November 18, 2019. You can find it here.

Marching On: An Interview with the Coordinators of the SLO Women’s March

10,000 in San Luis Obispo

500,000 in California

4 million in the United States

5 million around the world

On January 21, what started as a haphazardly organized Facebook event became the largest march of its kind in history. What should’ve taken months to organize came together in a matter of weeks. On February 1, the Wire had the opportunity to sit down with Dawn Addis, one of the coordinators of the Women’s March in San Luis Obispo, and talk about what compelled her to take part in such a historical event, what she hopes for the future and who helped her along the way.

NOV 8

Addis, who works with English Language Development programs in the local San Luis Obispo school district, was one of the many upset with the results of the election. As someone who works with immigrant families and children, she could understand why so many Americans were feeling scared and helpless.

“When you’re sitting across the table from someone and they’re telling you how scared they are, or hearing what kids are going through, whether it’s locally or different places in the nation, that has been very painful for me,” Addis said. “I was trying to figure out what my path is, what I wanted to do, how to share my voice, [when I] saw the Women’s March in Washington.” Unsure of how safe it would be to march at the Capitol, she started thinking about having one in SLO. 

As it turned out, quite a few people were interested. 

Political Science junior Ellie Lupo and Child Development senior Winnie Chen would turn out to be two of 10,000 women and men who marched in SLO. But they didn’t just participate in the march— they were an integral part of organizing it. The week after the election, they applied to become interns for the SLO Democratic Party.

“I think I can speak for both of us when I say we were pretty upset and were just trying to figure out how to take action,” Lupo said. “You’re just sitting there like ‘what next?’ I can’t just sit around and cry anymore. We wanted to get involved in the community.” 

That was how a small group of women in SLO started one of the biggest marches in history. 

NOV 12

“Nice girls don’t change the world.” 

When Addis started organizing the march with her friend Jen Ford, comments like these were one of the biggest struggles she faced. The Women’s March was to be a non-violent, non-partisan march, but that drew a lot of criticism because many people believed that it was impossible not to pick a side. 

“At the very get-go we really, as a group, had to do some soul searching about what we were for,” Addis said. “It’s about your intentionality. Do you want to put your energy into what you hate, or do you want to put your energy into where you want to be?”

The march in SLO, like the National March in Washington, followed the six principles of Kingian non-violence, which encouraged staying true to messages and ideas rather than attacking people. Addis acknowledges that following these principles is difficult in a time when people are feeling threatened and scared, but also argues that it takes more courage to stay hopeful. 

Though the march was non-partisan, the SLO Democratic Party played a large part in organizing the event. Chen and Lupo, as two interns, took roles as outreach coordinators and contacted different organizations at Cal Poly to get them involved in the march. SLO Solidarity, the Multicultural Center and the Women in Gender Studies Department were a few of the many organizations that had booths set up during the march. 

The interns had been given a script for the e-mails they sent out, which stated that people should bring signs that represent what they are marching for rather than what they’re standing up against. 

“I think that that sums it up really well that we’re looking towards the future and not looking at all the things that are pushing us down in this moment,” Chen said. 

JANUARY 21 

Ten weeks later, what was supposed to be a march of 300 people became a march of 10,000. 

8:00 AM

A million things were running through Addis’ mind— the kind of things you ask yourself when you organize an event that was meant to be for 300 people: Where are the police I’m supposed to be coordinating with? Are people going to be safe? 

These were only slightly different from the questions you ask yourself when 10,000 people end up showing up: Oh, my god. Are there enough bathrooms? 

9:00 AM 

Lupo and Chen were checking in volunteers at Action Alley. The booths and tents were set up across from each other in a line, where many Cal Poly organizations and other non-profits were talking to marchers. 

“I thought it was amazing because all these women and men felt passionate about this cause and took up their morning to help out,” Lupo said. “Every single volunteer spot was taken, and we had people coming up and asking if there were still spots to volunteer.” 

10:45 AM 

The police were unable to hold back the surging crowd. The weather app had said it wasn’t going to rain that morning, but it had already started drizzling. A young boy in a blue parka held up a sign that said “Feminist in training.” Under a canopy of umbrellas, the blocks between Santa Rosa and Osos were packed with marchers.

“Show me what democracy looks like!” “This is what democracy looks like!” 

11:20 AM 

The heavens opened up. 

“We were standing at a standstill outside Peet’s, and it suddenly started pouring buckets,” Chen said. “It was unreal. Everyone was screaming and whooping and hollering, and I’m getting poured on, every single inch of my body is drenched. But in [that] moment, I feared nothing.” 

Watching as people of all shapes, sizes and colors danced and sang in the rain, Addis came to the conclusion that, yes, nice girls could change the world. 

FEBRUARY 1

When The Wire sat down with Dawn Addis a few weeks afterward, she discussed what the lasting effects of the march were, and what she has been doing since then.

Addis felt that the march garnered so much attention because it wasn’t “nasty”; it wasn’t spiteful or vengeful. Instead, the march gave people something to look back on when they are feeling alone or at a loss. It gave them hope. 

“I think it drew people in that aren’t used to taking action, and they aren’t used to getting out and getting in the streets and voicing their opinion. I think we engaged a lot of people who wouldn’t have come to an angry protest,” Addis said. 

While many people look back at the march fondly and with a sense of unity, Addis is looking back and wondering who wasn’t there and why. Looking toward the future, Addis hopes to engage those people and build partnerships. 

Winnie Chen, as someone who had not only participated in the march but also helped organize it, had her own thoughts on the issue. “I do have to take into consideration the demographics [of SLO], but I do agree that it could be more well attended,” she said. “As a woman of color, I can see why a person of color would refrain from attending protests. I think that we’re socialized in such a way that we’re inferior to the white person, and our voices may not be as valued. I don’t want to generalize either, but maybe some of them would feel discouraged or feel like their voice doesn’t matter, which isn’t true at all.”

Both interns felt that participating in the march left them more hopeful than they had felt since Nov. 8. 

“For the community in general, obviously it connected our little town in SLO to a wider national movement that’s happening,” Lupo said. “I went home and looked at the news and saw the march in D.C. and I almost felt like I was there. All these women came out across the country, and we were together that day.” 

More than anything, unity was the biggest legacy of the Women’s March. Looking forward, Dawn, Winnie and Ellie will continue to work towards a more unified and inclusive community in SLO to ensure that the legacy of the march remains a persistent reminder of what a group of ‘nice girls’ can accomplish.

This story was originally published on The WIB Wire on February 12, 2017.

The radical reinvention of today’s pop queens

Van Gogh cut off his ear. Ernest Hemingway’s life was surrounded by suicide that haunted him until he committed suicide himself. Whitney Houston struggled with drug addiction and her sexuality for years before she drowned in a hotel bathtub. Does this mean great art really does come from great suffering? If it does, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that the latest star to achieve greatness through martyrdom is a five-foot tall, 25-year-old woman usually distinguished by her high, swinging ponytail, cat ears and high-pitched giggle.

Even if it is not on your queue, Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” album is more likely than not blasting through the AirPods of the person next to you. As of Tuesday, Feb. 12, Grande had taken over the United States Top 50 on Spotify with nine of the country’s top 10 songs straight from her new album. All 12 songs on the album could be found in the top 20. While the charts have settled down this weekend, Grande is still riding the high tides of her most successful album to date— as Rolling Stone quipped, “God is this woman.”

But the line between good and great is blurry and often highly subjective. Good can be applied to a great variety of things, like last night’s take-out or that one Panic! At the Disco song, but the distinguishable trait of being good is that it is fleeting. Greatness is often reserved for things that cling onto the recesses of our memory, too remarkable to forget and yet too indistinguishable to determine what exactly sets it apart. The secret to greatness, as the truly exceptional performers have realized, has very little to do with actual talent and almost everything to do with perception. Great art may come from great suffering, but, more likely, it comes from open and honest vulnerability. And Grande was not the first modern pop queen to figure that out.

Since 2008, Taylor Swift has continued to turn heads and astonish fans with her theatrics and ever-evolving musical style. We may have almost forgotten about Swift if she’d stuck to her country-pop vibe. But then she released her album, “1989.” She could have retreated after the Kim Kardashian fiasco following the release of Kanye’s song “Famous.” Instead, in one of the most iconic marketing moves in the industry, she released the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, transforming the “You Belong With Me” singer into a drama queen sitting on a throne as a snake serves her tea, complete with her famous line: “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.” We may, over time, have forgotten about all of this— except on New Year’s Day 2019, she released her Netflix special documenting her Reputation Stadium Tour. And it reminded us all over again why and how Swift has remained relevant for over a decade.

Taylor Swift: ‘Look what you made me do’ music video

Although the two singers’ careers may have felt different originally—Grande’s fame seemingly more sudden while Swift has been on and off the radar for years— they share the woes of a very public life that has forced them, for better or for worse, to grow up with the world watching. Just as today’s young adults have, possibly regretfully, grown up in the era of Justin Bieber and One Direction— who are, may I add, no longer relevant— so we also have grown, struggled and succeeded alongside Swift and Grande. We remember curly-haired, doe-eyed Taylor looking up at the camera and singing about the teardrops on her guitar because of a high-school jock who didn’t know she existed, in what can only be described as the backdrop of a poorly funded early-2000s music video. We remember her crooning “Love Story” at the top of a fake balcony and running excessively slowly across a lawn to meet her Romeo. And we still see her familiar theatrics today in her Reputation Stadium Tour. Grande? Let’s not forget that before the cat ears and fake ponytail, she played the annoying character Cat from “Victorious”— and she has no qualms about making digs at her early career on social media.

Ariana Grande posts on Instagram about her first news headline.

“Grande, a woman of her moment, understands that the work of a contemporary pop star is complex and multitudinous, and that singing is but a wee fraction of the gig,” New Yorker journalist Amanda Petrusich writes. “She maintains a chatty, confessional presence on social media, and, unlike many of her peers, knows that humor and transparency are valuable currency, and that neither can be very credibly fudged.”

These artists’ growth into who they are and what they stand for today can only be described as iconic. Of course we remember Nashville Taylor, America’s sweetheart Taylor, the Taylor that can be spotted in “Hannah Montana: The Movie”. But how much more fun is it to see today’s Taylor, the one sitting on a throne of snakes and accepting her status as a ‘fake b***h’? Character development much? This is why I can shamelessly say I got through more than half of that Netflix special. Because I grew up with her. “Red” was the first CD album I owned. I know her, though I don’t know her at all. Taylor is a character in a book, as familiar as Cinderella or Ariel, yet she’s always been the princess that never needed a prince to be successful— the best kind of role model. As The New Yorker so eloquently put,

“[Swift] is terrifyingly expert at addressing millions of strangers as if each were a cherished and familiar confidant. It’s easy to be cynical about this way of communicating, which favors a kind of dopey, manipulative warmth […] It is more likely that this is simply what happens when powerful women are expected to be both sweet and savvy, nurturers and entrepreneurs—eventually the line between the two fades, and friendliness and salesmanship become inextricable.”

The same reasoning explains why Grande and her album are so addicting to so many. Her work is a culmination of everything she and— through the osmosis of social media— her fans have endured in the last year. “Thank u, next” is a channel for her grief after the 2017 Manchester bombings, Mac Miller’s passing and her seemingly inevitable breakup with Pete Davidson. We have been with her through it all, heartbreak after heartbreak. And now, hearing her pain after Miller’s death and her struggle to keep her relationship with Davidson, we feel it too. She expresses this through the heart-tugging melody of “ghostin”, so unlike Grande’s other songs in the album: “I know you hear me when I cry/ I try to hold it in the night/ While you’re sleepin’ next to me/ But it’s your arms that I need this time.” And at the same time, we feel her indignation at people who blame her for Miller’s death in “fake smile”— “I read the things they write about me/ Hear what they’re sayin’ on the TV, it’s crazy/ It’s gettin’ hard for them to shock me/ But every now and then, it’s shocking, don’t blame me.”

Ariana Grande tweets a response at internet commentary on her relationship with Mac Miller after his death.

In her Stadium Tour, Swift envelops herself in her reputation with snake-like dance moves, her famous sultry side gaze and songs like “I Did Something Bad”: “If a man talks sh*t, then I owe him nothing” to which I’m sure women everywhere yelled a collective “yeah!” But in the same song, we feel— albeit very briefly— her vulnerability when she says, “They never see it comin, what I do next/ This is how the world works/ You gotta leave before you get left.” And, in her monologue to the screaming Dallas audience, many of them in tears, she says, “I think the things that can scare us the most in life are the things that we think will threaten the prospect of us finding something real. For example, having a bad reputation in our mind could get in the way of finding real friendship, real love, real acceptance, people you really fit in with. Because you think to yourself, ‘What if they heard something about me that isn’t true?’ […] And then they never even want to meet me.” And perhaps it is a ‘faux-intimacy’ as The New Yorker called it, but right then I felt the same emotion— was it empathy or sympathy?— as when Grande accepted her Billboard’s Women of the Year Award.

Swift, and now Grande, are fearless feminine leaders of our generation— charging at the forefront of the modern women’s movement and re-defining what it means to experience all the emotions, heartbreak, success, love and loss as powerful and strong public figures. And they aren’t the only ones; Cardi B’s rags to riches story, from a Manhattan stripper to the first woman to win best rap album at the Grammys, Miley Cyrus’ journey from “Hannah Montana” to “Wrecking Ball” to “Malibu” amid her on-again off-again relationship with Liam Hemsworth, Rihanna going from creating music to creating a multi-million dollar beauty company— women are shattering stereotypes and taking ownership of their lives everywhere.

Ultimately, Swift and Grande are prime examples of what it means to take your career in your own hands— especially in an industry that gives so little room for this kind of control and in an era when everyone thinks they know them better than they know themselves. To turn pain into something productive; to win awards and accolades and be at the height of your career even while your personal life is at its lowest, well, that takes something. And if people disagree, I’m sure either star will brush it off with a simple “thank u, next”.

This story was originally published on The WIB Wire on April 6, 2019.

Why I never made it as a track star

A letter from the editor:

I was in the sixth grade when I ran my first mile. It seemed simple enough— just four laps around the school track. So as I took my place behind the starting line along with thirty other pre-pubescent kids in my P.E. class, I imagined myself being the star athlete, passing the finish line a lap ahead of everyone else, arms raised in victory. Reality wasn’t so kind. And when I said “ran” my first mile, that was me being charitable. 

I did come up first place exactly as I had imagined: cheeks red, breathing heavily, sweat pooling at the back of my neck, people cheering me on. For the first lap. My lungs gave out halfway through the second, and I ended up walking— sometimes pathetically jogging whenever someone passed me so I at least looked like I was trying— the rest of it. Did I finish in fifth place? Sixth? Fifteenth, at least? Nope. Out of the 30 kids in Mr. Jensen’s P.E. class, I finished dead last. 

There have been a lot of times in my life that I have felt like that since then. One of them was freshman year of college, the beginning of what is probably the most important mile of your life. Four laps, four years, and you’re supposed to start out slow and go a little faster each time around (that’s a tip I learned after that first disaster). College is such a big part of your life, and in so many ways. It’s a chance to reinvent yourself. A chance to really find your passion. A chance to become an adult, and start building your professional career. But like running a mile, it starts out simple and only gets harder. 

During our end of the year team dinner, the last editor of this publication gave us a book: Grit: The power of passion and perseverance by Angela Duckworth. The basic premise of the book is in the title itself, but can also be summed up in this quote: “Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” 

In other words, some people are just naturally talented at certain things; The people who can run six-minute miles, or the five year-old piano prodigies at Carnegie Hall, or that one guy who can solve a rubix cube with his feet in 25 seconds. But what’s more important and even rarer than talent is grit: That thing that makes you want to practice endless hours a week, and the reason thousands of people can be star athletes in school, but a Katie Ledecky only comes around once in a lifetime. 

When asked about The Wire, my knee-jerk response is to say that it is the publication for Cal Poly’s Women in Business Association. While we are promoted on WIB’s channels, our stories go beyond the club. If you take a look at our marketing material, either on our Facebook page or on posters and business cards around campus, you’ll find a collage made up of some of the most successful women in history. Successful in their own ways, but they all share a common characteristic: grit. How did female activists like Kamala Harris get to where they are today? What adversities are women facing in the workforce, and what are they doing to overcome them? On a more localized level, how are gritty professors and students making strides to create a more inclusive, diverse community? Grit is still a vastly understudied concept, and this year, our goal is to also expand our study of grit to women in other fields, such as political science and STEM. Two of our contributors, business administration junior Aliyah Purnell and English junior Natalie Truong, are currently studying abroad and will be writing about, among other things, the gritty women they meet on their travels. 

Eight years later, I’m still not good at running. And I don’t like running at the gym unless I’m with someone else. Not just because they hold me accountable to go to the gym in the first place, but also because competition makes me want to do more. Whenever my lungs are about to explode and my legs feel like they’re about to give out from under me, I glance at my partner’s distance and average mile time, grit my teeth together, and push myself harder. I hope The Wire becomes that person for you, the one who helps you build your own grit.

I don’t have the natural athletic ability to run a six minute mile, but I’d like to think that if I had been grittier back then, I could’ve made it as a track star.

Well, a middle school track star at least. 

The original story was published on The WIB Wire on October 23, 2017.

Entreprenurial Profile: Bozoma Saint John

When a company is in the process of hiring a potential employee, they go through a number of predictable steps. They look at her resume, her CV, contact her previous employers. And during the interview, they’ll ask some variation of, “What have you accomplished in the past?” and “What can you contribute to our company?” Or, to summarize in a single question, “Why should we hire you?”

For Bozoma Saint John, these questions were probably irrelevant. They should have been “What haven’t you done?” and “Why wouldn’t we  hire you?” Here is just a small list of her accolades, not including the high-ranking positions listed on her LinkedIn. 

1. Named Executive of the Year at Billboard’s Women in Music Awards 
2. First recipient of the Rockstar Award from Adcolor 
3. Named one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People 
4. Inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement 
5. First Black woman to be onstage at the Apple Developers’ Conference (2016)

Numerous news articles hail Saint John as a “unicorn”, as she is one of a handful of black female C-suite executives in the tech industry. Her life has always been categorized by change and taking risks. She was born in Ghana, but fled for political asylum to Colorado Springs after a coup-d’etat in her native country. Growing up “different,” she learned to make friends through her extensive knowledge of pop culture. That same passion for pop is what got her to where she is today. 

Saint John studied English and African American studies at Wesleyan University, and was preparing to go to medical school once she graduated, but took a year off. In that year, everything changed. While she was working at a temp agency in New York, she was hired by Spike Lee’s advertising agency, Spike DDB, as an assistant. There she worked on ads with high-profile clients, like the 2002 Pepsi ad with Beyonce. 

In 2005, Saint John was hired by PepsiCo. She helped arrange multi-million endorsement deals with celebrities like Eminem and Nicki Minaj. She secured five different deals with Beyonce, including her half-time performance at the 2013 Super Bowl. Back then, that deal was the highlight of her career. 

Later that same year, her husband passed away from cancer. She was left to raise a four year-old daughter. At what was probably the most difficult part of her life thus far, Saint John picked herself up, dusted herself off, and looked to the future. She found it in the music streaming industry. When she received an offer from Beats Music founder Dr. Dre, she took a leap of faith and accepted the position as the head of global marketing. And when Apple acquired Beats, she moved up the ranks and took the position of head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music, working on ads featuring big names like Kerry Washington, Drake and Taylor Swift. In a market where competitors like Spotify already have an upper hand, making Apple Music a big name was no easy feat. According to a Billboard article, the streaming service had received over 20 million paid subscribers since Saint John was hired. 

Working for Apple was Saint John’s chance to combine her love for storytelling with business, which is something she had wanted to do since she majored in English. As a woman in her high-profile position, she used her voice to positively influence the mainstream media perception of people of color. 

But despite all these accomplishments, the job that Saint John most recently accepted is what many fear is a fruitless one: Uber’s chief brand officer. In this position, Saint John will have to not only fix the internal culture at Uber, but also change the way the company is perceived by the general public. With the number of problems that Uber is having right now, many believe that the company should be left for dead.

Saint John, however, feels differently. The New York Times did a profile on Saint John and asked her a question about the challenges of her new job, to which she replied,“I don’t see a difference between the evolution of where the music industry was going and how to evolve people’s listening habits and, now, how to evolve people’s feelings around ride sharing and Uber.”

In an interview with Glamour, she relays the impact she wishes to impart on the company: “There’s no more exciting moment for me as a brand strategist than a turnaround…We want to make sure women feel empowered, safe, and excited about their work. And being a change agent means being fearless. Uber will never be the same after I leave.” 

As a young teen who had just moved from Ghana, she stood out for many reasons back in her high school in Colorado; the color of her skin, her hair, her clothes. Today she stands out because of her bold, fearless personality, her willingness to take risks, her ability to be her whole self unabashedly, and her passion for her work. As she blazes a trail of success, she leaves it open for countless women after her. Bozoma Saint John is the first of many. 
The original story was published on <em>The WIB Wire</em> on October 8, 2017.

The Silicon Valley’s Sexism Problem

Opportunity. Innovation. Success. These are all words that come to mind when you think of the Silicon Valley. But in the last month, that image of the tech world has taken a darker turn. As more and more women from the Valley have reported cases to The New York Times and CNN, the words that were once hushed whispers have taken center stage: sexual harassment.

THE CAPITAL IMBALANCE

Entrepreneur Gesche Haas received the e-mail from investor Pavel Curda right after their business meeting over drinks. But it didn’t have anything to do with her business; instead it contained a proposition for sex.

Haas was one of the many women who have recently come out about the sexual harassment they have experienced in the tech world. It started with the ousting of Uber’s CEO Travis Kalanick, which was a result of investigations that were triggered by Susan Fowler’s blog post. The week that Kalanick resigned, more than two dozen women have come out with similar stories of sexual harassment, especially in the venture capitalist industry. In an area where men dominate and success and power often go unchecked, the recent allegations are sending out a strong message: Whether you are a female engineer just starting a rotation on a team, or a female entrepreneur trying to fund a start-up, be ready to tolerate the sexual advances of the men who are supposed to be mentoring you.

“Investors fund people, not just ideas,” is a widely held belief in the Valley. It’s easy to understand why. A mediocre entrepreneur can have a great idea, but it can fall short if they can’t execute it properly. On the other hand, a great entrepreneur can potentially turn a mediocre idea into a successful business. So it’s important, and justifiable, that investors get to know founders. And it’s common for these meetings to happen in casual settings, such as over drinks or dinner.

But for female entrepreneurs, pitch meetings can go drastically wrong very quickly. In an interview with CNN, Lisa Wang, the cofounder of SheWorx, recounts one such experience with an investor at a Starbucks. “We’re sitting [there], and he grabs my face and tries to make out with me, and I push him back in surprise, and just didn’t know what to do, because he continued to try again, and was so aggressive,” she said. Afterward, he tried to follow her into her hotel room [1].

Why do investors use these professional discussions as opportunities to make sexual advances? Because of the gender imbalance in the entrepreneur- investor relationship.
According to a recent survey reported by CNN, 89 percent of those making investment decisions at the top 72 firms are male, which means female entrepreneurs are pitching their business ideas primarily to men. Furthermore, a report from the the data firm PitchBook says that in 2016, venture capitalists invested $1.5 billion into startups founded by women. It seems like a lot. But that number pales in comparison to the whopping $64.9 billion that VCs invested into male-founded startups.

Bea Arthur, an entrepreneur who founded a mental health startup and who has had her own share of these encounters, puts the issue into perspective: “If [the male investor] looks at another man, he sees them as an opportunity, a colleague, a peer, a mentor. But if you’re a female founder, he just sees you as a woman first” [2].

A MAN’S NINE LIVES
Even with the torrent of allegations that have come out in recent weeks, the Silicon Valley continues to prevent women from speaking out about sexual harassment. Why? It works as a safety net for both sides. If a woman speaks out, she could be labeled as “hard to work with,” which could threaten future career opportunities. But Kalanick’s resignation is also a warning of what can happen to successful people when the media gets a hint of bad news. What happened to Uber, Binary Capital and 500 Startups could happen to any company.

Many companies make their employees sign non-disparagement clauses, which prevents employees from going public about any inappropriate behavior they experience at work. Understandable. A company is nothing without a good reputation, which is probably why VC Justin Caldbeck only now resigned after seven years of harassing women at three different firms, and investment firms only now pulled out funding for Binary Capital. The same reason that Travis Kalanick only resigned from Uber once the board decided that Susan Fowler’s blog post was getting too much attention, and that they couldn’t shove the worms back in the can fast enough.

But people who commit sexual harassment are known to have done it more than once— and will continue to do it even once caught. Caldbeck just happened to have run out of his nine lives. So if companies are going to make their employees sign non-disparagement clauses, they should at least take it upon themselves to prevent situations like this from happening again. A zero tolerance policy. A public disclosure, so that predators can’t just go sexually harass women in another company. Bottom line: There will be no second chance.

CHALLENGING THE NORM

Sexual harassment in the tech place is not a singular issue. It’s not just a couple men who were continuously shoving their hands in the cookie jar until they got caught. But it’s very easy for men to pull the “not all VCs” or “not all tech bros” card— not all of them are groping women under tables. As Niniane Wang, CEO of Evertoon and one of the women who spoke out against Caldbeck, pointed out, just because men haven’t overtly discriminated against women by following them into hotel rooms doesn’t mean they are innocent of participating in something seemingly far less grievous: locker room talk. Sexist comments that contribute to an overall culture of sexual discrimination, often made in private rooms full of men where no one is held accountable. Such as a high school locker room. Or a tech firm’s board meeting. The only way to combat that? Bring women into the room.

Invest in women. Hire diverse people with diverse thoughts— and use the status quo to your advantage. As a recent Harvard study noted, “People have a bias in favor of preserving the status quo; change is uncomfortable. So because 95% of CEOs are white men, the status quo bias can lead board members to unconsciously prefer to hire more white men for leadership roles” [3]. If there’s only one woman or minority in a pool of finalists, they have statistically no chance of getting the position, because the singularity highlights the fact that they are different. But what the study found was that adding even one more woman or minority in a finalist group can significantly increase their chances of being selected. Managers need to work to get multiple women in the pool of finalists, so that they have a fighting chance for the position.

And just as important as getting diverse people to join a company, is the ability to keep them there. The retention rate of people in diverse groups and their satisfaction in their jobs needs to be as much of a Key Performance Indicator as revenue growth and profit. Are people comfortable speaking up? Do they feel confident and capable in their own skin? Do they feel that the company culture sets them up for success? If you are an intern or just starting out at a company, ask yourself the same questions.

Many young women aspire to someday work at Silicon Valley’s biggest companies: Apple, Google, Facebook. Many dream of starting their own companies one day. What is going on right now should not hinder them from doing so. Things are changing, if Justin Caldbeck’s, Chris Sacca’s and Travis Kalanick’s resignations are any indicators to go by. Things are changing because of the dozens of women who spoke out against a pervasive sexist culture that needed to go— despite the fact that doing so would put their own careers on the line.

No matter where you decide to work in the future, make sure you know your own value, and don’t feel like you have to give parts of yourself up just to reach your goals. Speak up if you see injustices going unheard. Do not excuse the actions of the rich and the powerful— being successful doesn’t give them the right to do anything they want without consequences. The Silicon Valley builds the future, a future that includes all of us. There is no room for sexism at the table.

The original story was published on The WIB Wire on July 30, 2017.

Meet Dina Habib Powell, The Woman Behind 10,000 Others

“We left our homeland so you could pursue your dreams—as long as you’re a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer.”

This is a joke many immigrant children are familiar with, and Dina Habib Powell was no stranger to it. Powell was born in Cairo, Egypt, and moved to Austin, Texas with her parents when she was four. Growing up, her hummus and falafel lunches, and inability to speak English, made her feel out of place. Years later, her Arabic descent is what made her stand out. With her initiative and willpower, Powell has become one of the most influential women in the world.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Powell was offered an internship with former Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. At 29 years old, she became the youngest ever person to direct the Presidential Personnel Office under the Bush Administration. In 2007, over a decade after she started working in the White House, Powell took her experience and ambition to Goldman Sachs as the managing director of Global Corporate Engagement. She then quickly rose up to became president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation, where she did her most impactful work.

At Goldman Sachs, Powell dedicated herself to running the firm’s global philanthropic efforts, including 10,000 Women, an initiative launched in 2008 that helps local economies grow by “providing women entrepreneurs around the world with business management education, mentoring and networking, and access to capital.” The program was launched in response to research conducted by the Goldman Sachs institute, which found that increasing the number of women in the workforce could increase global income per capita as much as 20% by 2030. Not only does it help the revenue growth and job creation, but empowering women can create a multiplier effect that positively affects the welfare of future generations. Powell cites that 90 percent of the women in this program are mentoring at least one other woman, or finding ways to provide education or health care in their local communities.

Many have commended Powell’s ability to not only come up with ideas but also her ability to execute them without fail. Her colleagues also unanimously agree that she has an uncanny ability to foster partnerships. For example, while she worked under the Bush administration, she connected business leaders with the government to provide disaster relief. In an incidental meeting with Pattie Sellers, the executive director of the Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit, Powell decided to start a mentoring program called the Fortune/US State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership.

Powell is currently back in the White House working under the Trump administration as his economic assistant and senior counselor for economic initiatives. Just recently she was promoted to Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategy. Though she is dubbed as “Ivanka Trump’s right-hand woman,” Powell is one of the few people in the new administration that both parties agree will be an effective leader that will work toward advancing the societal and economic standing of the country.

Powell is an outstanding example of what it means to use power for good. She has not only managed to lead initiatives like 10,000 Women and 10,000 Small Businesses, but her philanthropic and policy-making efforts have created a platform for the empowerment of women and minorities worldwide. Her ability to establish partnerships and turn ideas into tangible results have made her successful in her career; however, it’s her passion, drive, and desire to give other people what she has, that have made her someone all young women should look to as a role model.

The original story was published on The WIB Wire on March 12, 2017. Find it here.

Barbie’s New Dolls Aim to Inspire Young “Sheroes”

I was more of a Bratz fan myself, but I had the occasional beheaded Barbie in my drawer with the other dolls. The Barbie dolls I remember playing with in the late 90s and early 2000s all looked the same: tall, blonde, skinny and occasionally missing a limb. From the dolls to the movies like Princess and the Pauper and Swan Lake, Barbie’s clothes, hair and character may have changed, but little else ever did. In fact, for a doll that was advertised to little girls to use their imagination, it’s ironic how Mattel Inc., Barbie’s manufacturers, took so long to imagine up a more diverse Barbie line.

But with ever-changing American beauty ideals, Barbie, a cultural symbol of femininity, was forced to change too.

With the impending death of Toys R’ Us, which Mattel sold 14 percent of its products to last year, and dropping stock prices, the American manufacturing company is fighting to keep its most famous product relevant. Company sales have been on the decline for years, especially since Disney sold its Princess rights to Hasbro and Frozen’s Elsa doll shoved Barbie off her plastic throne as the most popular girl’s toy. The coup cost Mattel $500 million. So how best to revive Barbie’s reign than to start advertising to girls that don’t look like, well, a Barbie doll?

In 2016, Mattel finally responded to concerns about unrealistic body standards, adding three new body types including “curvy,” “petite” and “tall”. The biggest change in the doll’s long history came, in part, as a result of several studies, including one published in the journal Developmental Psychology reported by Time Magazine, showing that “girls exposed to Barbie at a young age expressed greater concern with being thin, compared with those exposed to other dolls.”

But after barely overcoming one problem, up comes another. Because not only does Barbie not look like any real woman, she’s also kind of a ditz. In 1963, Mattel released Barbie dolls that were programmed to say “Math class is hard” and “Don’t eat,” fittingly sold with a diet book, teaching the future generation of women that it was more important to be pretty than it was to be smart (Times). In most recent news, Mattel started changing that, too.

Mattel released its Inspiring Women line last week just in time for International Women’s Day. This collection of 17 dolls is made up of “sheroes,” role models from all walks of life like Olympic Gymnast Gabby Douglas, Hidden Figures NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, conservationist Bindi Irwin and artist Frida Kahlo.

According to the Barbie website, “Barbie is committed to shining a light on empowering role models past and present in an effort to inspire more girls.” Mattel recently found that 81 percent of moms in the sample they surveyed were “worried about the type of role models to which their young daughters are exposed.” If the popularity of the Kardashians is anything to go by, I would say this is a justified reason to introduce a new product into the market targeting millennial moms.

From the many decisions corporations make to appease shareholders at the expense of its consumers, this Inspiring Women campaign is actually a mutually beneficial one. Many studies have shown that the binary surrounding toys are detrimental— one BBC article argues that “Boys toys tend to contain didactic information, with technical instructions and fitting things together with Lego and Meccano, whereas girls’ toys tend to be around imaginative and creative play, which develop different skills.” The Guardian reports that the Institution for Engineering and Technology found that “toys with a [STEM] focus were three times as likely to be targeted at boys than girls.” But can toys really affect career choice?

National Geographic magazine goes as far to suggest that the way children play affect not only the way they are socialized, but also the way their brains develop. Playing with toys like Legos develop spatial skills, which help you to decide, in a simple case, how big of a box you need to package a certain object. But they are also crucial for more complex fields of study: “An astronomer must visualize the structure of a solar system and the motions of the objects in it. An engineer visualizes the interactions of the parts of a machine” (Johns Hopkins).

So what does it mean when boys are learning spatial and problem-solving skills through toys like Legos while girls are busy playacting with Barbies and My Little Pony? I don’t think you need the scientific results of studies to see the consequences of childhood play on career choice— just look at the lack of female representation in any of the STEM majors.

That’s where I think Mattel actually did something right— by introducing inspirational women from a wide variety of career paths, from mathematics and physics to journalism to art, the new barbie doll line opens up a variety of career options for young girls. Yes, Barbie is still a gendered toy, but there isn’t much Matell can do to change that. At least, instead of aspiring to be busty and thin, girls can dream to work at NASA or be a movie director or a soccer player, and not be pigeon-holed into any one career path. Mattel is showing girls they can be anything they work for.

If Disney was applauded for Tiana, Elsa and Moana, then Mattel should be applauded for the steps they’re taking to diversify their products. The company has gotten backlash for the Frida Kahlo doll being too thin and missing her signature unibrow, and those minute details absolutely need to be taken into consideration for future products. But we should be applauding the fact that they finally made a Frida Kahlo doll; pursue progress, not perfection. Young girls should be inspired by her for what she did, not how she looks.

Looking back, I couldn’t tell you if my complete disinterest in STEM is because of the dolls I played with. But I do think having inspirational dolls, and learning about these trailblazing women at an early age, would have been helpful. Maybe I would’ve convinced my mom to put me in gymnastics classes and, who knows, it might’ve been me winning the Olympic gold medal instead of Gabby Douglas.

The original story was published on The WIB Wire on March 18, 2018. Find it here.
**The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of Women in Business and its members.**