Today, I had the rare privilege of spending the day with amazing women in higher ed leadership from the colleges & universities of Utah. Committed to supporting other women in higher ed when I lived in NH (NHWHEL), I treasure networking events like today’s conference because I learn so much & feel so uplifted, so encouraged by inspiring women leaders.

Funny enough, our Keynote Speaker was Dr. Ann Weaver Hart, the current president of the University of Arizona, but she was the president at the University of New Hampshire when I was a doctoral student there. When her presentation wrapped & it became time for Q & A, I stood up to ask my question but first told Dr. Hart what a difference it made for me to have her example as a UNH grad student. I felt proud that our university had a woman president nearly 20 years ago. She was pleasantly surprised, since we are in Utah, her native state.

While the American populace likes to think things are equal between all sexes, that’s just not the case. We’ve yet to elect a woman president of the US, & less than 5% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. Roughly 30% of college & university presidents are women, & the pay gap at those higher tiers of executive jobs is notable, but meaning men are paid significantly more money than women for the same job. And that’s for white women. That’s not accounting for women of color who face even bleaker prospects regarding representation & pay.

For example, one of the presenters today was/is a doctoral student at UPenn, where she’s researching gender equity in business schools, particularly in administrative roles. Since she was a woman of color, I asked her what were the findings for women who carried the double burden in American society of both gender & race? She said that her advisors said the sample size would have been too low to move forward with a viable project. What a sobering thought.

Maybe the fact that I grew up the youngest of 6 kids with 4 brothers has made me keenly aware of gender roles & power positions? I remember having to help my mom with chores during Sunday football while the boys watched the game with my dad. I was expected to start doing my own laundry at 12, while my brothers in their 20s still had my mom doing their wash & pressing their shirts & pants. During holidays or family events, I was assumed the built-in childcare provider for my 8 nieces & nephews (whom I love dearly, but STILL). I remember really resenting that I had to do things in a subservient way simply because I happened to be born female.

I guess this also may be why I agree with Madeleine Albright about women who don’t help other women advance in their careers?For I’ve seen, first-hand, women leaders who have ruthlessly held other women back & only promote men… And yet they’d still fancy themselves sisters to the cause. A long-time girlfriend betray her good friend, jumping over her to get a promotion the other actually deserved. It can be truly ugly what behavior patriarchy engenders among women who should be allies, not rivals.

Thus, today fed my soul. It means so much to me to see women celebrating other women, lifting them up. One attendee from my presentation, an older woman in academe, approached me at the end of the day to thank me for validating her point of view, her truth. She’d felt “beaten down” by the men in her profession who just shut her down or even trolled her on social media, to the extent that she’d given up on using it. She teaches communications & said that she validates her students & their experiences, but that sometimes we, including she, could fail to do that for ourselves. My taking that extra 10 minutes between sessions earlier in the morning had made all the difference for her.

So if there’s one thing I take away with me today it’s a renewed fervor for helping my fellow woman in higher ed. Mentoring, promoting through social media, connecting people, giving endorsements & recommendations… You name it. This girl is on FIRE! And not from that special place reserved for women who don’t help women.