My Epiphany
How to Turn Our Rage Into Action
I had my annual check-up yesterday. I’m fine. However, the medical system is not fine. It’s bad. Really bad. I mean, so is the world right now. And there are plenty of us, male and female, who are angry about things. Doctors are mad. Patients are mad. Republicans are mad. Democrats are mad. Men are mad. Women are mad. And all the men in charge of things are doing a Very Bad Job. It’s almost comical it’s so bad. And yet children, mothers, our elders are being abused, bombed to smithereens, and exterminated like the weeds MEN are using toxic chemicals on to kill.
While my doctor and I were chatting and sharing stories, it hit me. We (women, goodness, healing) can not win in the current system. There is only one option in front of us if we are to succeed. We need to start building an alternative system. A woman-owned and run system. I was telling her how I was lucky my father gave me control of the family business after he died, because it gave me the security to run things in a different way. I didn’t succeed in the traditional sense — unless you consider selling the business before the whole industry collapsed as succeeding. (Yes, I was very successful by that measure). She shared that in India, the best businesses are run by the women who own them.
It’s time to start building new models that we own and control. New boats that we can sail away on, while the boat we are currently in starts sinking from the ineptitude of the current captains.
And that got me thinking about boats. About 25 years ago, our book division held an offsite with a professor from the Darden Business School, Jay Bourgeois. He broke us out into groups, as these guys do, and gave us an assignment: Draw our competitive landscape as a group of boats. All of the groups drew similar pictures. Reader’s Digest (our biggest direct mail competitor) was like a giant cruise ship or warship. Our book business was like a Viking Ship with lots of people rowing a vintage wooden boat. I’m the only one who drew a speedboat in the picture, with men in sunglasses at the helm. Jay asked me who that was, and I said I didn’t know. It was the unknown surprise we weren’t thinking about yet. It turns out the guys in the speedboat were Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Google boys. We were all bombed to smithereens. And now they have the giant boats, way bigger than Reader’s Digest ever could imagine.
My point here is we don’t need to start out building a warship or a giant yacht. We can start a fleet of small boats. Sailboats! We can be lady pirates! We can steal back what was stolen from us and distribute it to those who need it most.
When the publishing business started to fail, I was still operating under the illusion that a Captain (me) must go down with the ship. Then I realized I could be a Privateer instead…sell the ship and get a new one. Or retire to my island. We have to stop waiting for change and start seizing the power to create change ourselves and own it.
Once again, I hear Margaret Fuller whispering in my ear. The Margaret, who died in a shipwreck caused by an incompetent captain. Before she knew that would be her fate, she wrote: “Let them be sea captains.” The “them” she was talking about is us. We are the women of the future she dreamed about and longed for.
We are the sea captains of our own ships. What are you waiting for?
Aye, Matey! I’m in!
Yes, put women & younger people in charge for awhile. Old white male boomers have fucked things up long enough; the alternatives can't possibly be worse (not counting Noem, Bondi, Leavitt & a few others).