Women Who Make a Difference Have a Timeline

Driving back from Ithaca along beautiful lakes and rolling hills, I eased into Auburn. I’ve driven the road a hundred times going to the Finger Lakes to produce events for women entrepreneurs. I often noticed the little white house situated behind fences and a historic blue metal sign saying “Home of Harriet Tubman” but I never drove up the driveway. Yesterday when I saw it approaching, I finally turned in the driveway to satisfy a yearning to learn more about this historic woman.

The event building behind the notable home housed a museum including a long wall timeline of Harriett’s life and a passionate African American woman and man “acting” out Harriett’s plight and successes. I couldn’t help but notice the white and black children in the audience listening with awe. It was a surreal experience to be sitting in this space a day after I told a group of 15 women I was going to only use $20 bills with Harriet Tubman’s face on it at my women’s business events to celebrate a woman on currency.

This morning as I opened an email from one of the women’s causes I follow, it had a timeline of historic female moments. It was a timeline about women finally rising in some areas of equality. The timeline made me think about Harriet’s timeline as well. It reminded me we each have our own timeline.

As my life changes this year with both of my sons moving and working in New York City, I look back on my own timeline to see it as a feminist timeline. It started in 1964 being born to a woman who fought to leave a traditional Italian upbringing to go to college. It developed in 1979 at the age of 15 when I put together an all girl’s slate to run for our class office. It arose when the first female board member of the alumni association of my college tapped me on the shoulder at 17 to lead a high school initiative. My feminist approach to life arose again in 1992 as I fought to turn my full time position into a part time position in my higher education job to be with my sons more. I occurred again three years later when I created my first company to use my intelligence to continue to earn money while being an active mother.

It happened when I stepped into the spotlight as a leader in women entrepreneurship in the early 1990s. And it developed when I created a Women’s Athletic Network in 2014 for women to enjoy sports together and put more women in the seats at women’s college games to show our support. After taking 110 women to Washington DC in January 2017, I added a “Women’s Equality Division” to my timeline and am assisting 261 Fearless.org create social running clubs for women all over the world. I do not list my own timeline to be narcissistic but to share how one woman’s life has a timeline centered around a common theme extending from birth to old age. What is your timeline?