The first day of college classes is like being transported to another planet. There’s an overwhelming amount of students and professors rushing by on the sidewalk, eagerly greeting friends and chatting about their schedules. It’s easy to get lost in the noise. Sometimes, all you need is someone who will listen and guide you through the maze.
During the Alliance for Women in Media’s Women in Sports Breakfast, a photographer captured this photo of 2015 honoree Lauren McHale and her daughter.
To me, this important picture says it all: a revered sports media veteran lovingly gazed at by her proud daughter.
I had the pleasure of sitting next to Lauren at the 2015 Gracies Luncheon where I was awarded an Emerging Voices Scholarship from Ford Motor Company Fund and the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation. Lauren’s company, Katz Sports Media, was one of the sponsors at the event and was represented by a number of female employees. Winning this prestigious scholarship from Ford provided me not only with much-needed funds, it also enabled me to network with high-power women in communications.
As a young woman about to start my professional career, I am constantly proving myself to others. When I meet someone for the first time, I am not concerned with what they see, but what they don’t. Handshake, check. Suit, check. But did I remember an extra pen?
I don’t know who made this a universal practice, but it seems like women with the same education and skillset as their male colleagues have to try much harder to seek approval in the workforce. Even now, with the advancements women have made over the past century, there is still a lingering element of doubt.
I have always been a writer, but there was a time when I was afraid to share my work. Words are powerful. I realized this from the start. I just didn’t know how others would view the words I had written. But then I realized something. I don’t write to be perfect. I write because I have something to share about an experience that didn’t have a movie-script ending. I write to heal, and others can benefit from hearing my story.
I was raised on a diet of fairy tales and a healthy dose of curiosity. In the stories I read while perched on the armchair of my living room sofa, there was always a happy ending with a period at the end of a sentence. But I soon found happy endings were not enough for me. One person’s happiness could be another person’s misery. Fairy tales, I realized, were one sided. No one ever sat down with Ursula, Cruella De Vil, or The Wicked Witch of the West to ask for their versions of the tale. They were marked as villains from the start. Period. No questions asked.
