Right now, women comprise 41 percent of the labor force in the United States and are making 80 percent of consumer purchasing decisions. Despite these indicators of women’s economic power, the upper echelons of the corporate world remain largely white and male-dominated. When you have been in the position of knowing what it feels like to be unseen, says Myla Calhoun, president of the nonprofit-funding Alabama Power Foundation, there's an urgency to change that for other women.

How can corporations level the playing field? One way is to make strategic investments that create more equity around access. “So that’s investing in programs that cause the elevation of opportunity for people who normally don’t get that break,” Calhoun explains. Her organization, for example, provides grant funding for projects that address underserved communities, with initiatives ranging from healthcare, to the arts, to environmental stewardship. And Calhoun herself is personally dedicated to the developing of talent among young women of color. 

Women are the supermajority in America. They’re not just an overwhelming majority of voters, but most activists, organizers, and, increasingly, candidates are women, says former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. So how do you galvanize the supermajority? Watch Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, explain her vision for what’s possible:

The 2020 election is coming, and leaders in the women’s movement are organizing. It’s important to remind people, urges Alicia Garza, that the issues impacting women are of national importance and affect everyone. That’s why Cecile Richards says she is ready to watch a presidential debate where, when a question comes up about equal pay or access to affordable childcare, it’s asked of a man. “I am so sick of the women always getting the questions that are supposedly women's issues,” she says.

We are whole people, Garza says, and it's long past time that our political system and our political representatives reflect the people who live in this country and respond to the issues that shape their lives. 

How do you build a movement? The trick, says Alicia Garza, is to use language and practice — let people know that this is a home for you. Watch Garza and Cecile Richards speak about their aspirations for a liberation agenda beyond the 2020 election and what excites them most about the gender equity movement: