ddddarby:

We will not close the leadership gap until we close the professional ambition gap. We need more women not just to sit at the table, but as President Obama said a few weeks ago at Barnard, to take their rightful seats at the head of the table. One of the reasons I was so excited to be here today is that Dean Nohria told me that this is the 50th anniversary of letting women into this school…Your dean is so passionate about getting more women into leadership positions and he told me he wanted me to speak this year for that reason. I met a woman from that first class once. She told me that when they first came in, they took a men’s room and converted it to a woman’s room. But they left the urinals in. The urinals are long gone. Let’s make sure that no one ever misses them.

- Sheryl Sandberg, Speech to Harvard Business School

It was culture shock when I left the Gulfstream bubble. When I left the world of girls in the woodshop, and female students giving presentations to C-levels in their sponsored studio, it was crazy crazy culture shock. In San Francisco of all places, I was meeting women that didn’t want to change the world in dramatic, drastic ways. Their life’s ambition was to be a teacher, nurse or full-time mom. Something safe, that complemented their maternal instincts. It’s a relief to see one of the few women in tech addressing a sentiment I feel almost ashamed to have: to ask women to aspire to more.

(If I meet one more female that works in K-12 art education I will probably just freak the fuck out.)