What LADIES FIRST Taught Me About Women Leading
I came to LADIES FIRST Washington DC on International Women’s Day expecting a good conversation. I left George Washington University thinking about how often women lead before anyone gives them permission, a title, a microphone, or a seat at the front of the room.
That kind of leadership feels familiar to me. It is not always polished. Sometimes it looks like a woman asking the question nobody else wants to ask. Sometimes it looks like organizing a small circle, helping another woman get through the door, or saying the truth out loud when silence would be easier.
A Room Full of Women Asking Better Questions
The best part of the evening was the energy in the room. Nobody needed to convince me that women are powerful. I already know that. What interested me more was how each woman carried power differently. Some spoke through strategy. Some spoke through lived experience. Others carried a softer strength that still filled the space.
Washington, D.C. has a way of making leadership feel formal. Yet this event reminded me that leadership also grows in community spaces, universities, living rooms, and small gatherings. That is why I keep returning to the power of storytelling on DG Speaks. Stories give shape to the lessons we are living while we are still living them.
Leadership Is More Than a Title
I paid close attention to the conversations about confidence, access, and visibility. However, I kept thinking about the women who lead without applause. Mothers, teachers, organizers, students, entrepreneurs, caregivers, and artists all move culture forward in ways that rarely make headlines.
That matters to me because I do not believe empowerment should be reduced to a slogan. Real empowerment requires systems that give women room to grow. It also requires honest conversations about race, class, opportunity, and whose leadership gets recognized first.
Those questions connect deeply with my work around sustainable development and community resilience. A society cannot call itself strong while ignoring the labor, brilliance, and vision of women.
What Washington Teaches When You Pay Attention
Visitors often come to D.C. for monuments, museums, and political history. Those places are worth seeing. Still, I think the city becomes more interesting when you step into events like this one. Local gatherings reveal what people are building now, not just what the country has already memorialized.
When friends ask me how to experience Washington beyond the obvious stops, I tell them to mix major attractions with neighborhood events, campus talks, food experiences, and small cultural programs. For planned tours, I like browsing GetYourGuide, but I also leave space for the kind of evening that finds you when you are open to it.
The Note I Wrote to Myself
By the end of the evening, I wrote one sentence in my notebook: do not wait to be chosen.
That is the kind of message I needed tonight. Not because I lack ambition, but because women are so often trained to prepare forever. We polish, study, support, volunteer, and wait. Meanwhile, the world needs our voices right now.
So I am leaving this night with a little more fire. I am also leaving with gratitude for every woman who makes room, tells the truth, and reaches back. That is leadership too.
If you want to invite me into a conversation about women, culture, food systems, or leadership, you can find my press kit and media assets here or schedule time through Calendly.
