Words from "I Am Yours" by Reema Zaman, required reading from Why Women's Feminist Book Club, a series bringing women-identifying authors to Why Women's community. As part of month-long discussions online and at book club, Why Women dedicated Women's History Month to breaking free of silence culture. Photo by Nadia Bedzhanova for The Why Women Project.
THE GENDER GAP
From media to advertising, too many talented women get overlooked in production and leadership roles that set the tone for everything we consume, from content to consumer products. When women’s narratives are co-opted by someone else for profit, a ripple effect hurts big and small brands, professional women, and their ability to earn.
Three things happen when we don’t get a say in who tells women’s stories:
- The big: Big brands that market to women hire the wrong creative team to tell their story.
- The bad: Female founders who need creative services can’t afford them.
- The unacceptable: Creative women don’t get the ownership they deserve.
A WOMEN'S ECONOMY
Why Women is creating a professional community whose collective force demands that women get the opportunity—not only to land the creative gig, but to be compensated for our unique and powerful creative vision. The bigger we can grow our femme-ily, the more negotiating power we have in an industry notorious for undervaluing creative work.
Because women should be the ones to tell our stories, and get credit for it, not some dudes co-opting feminism at an “it” ad agency. Women biz owners from a fast-growing set of entrepreneurs should have the option of working with an all-women creative team. And brands who believe in impact and diversity should have the chance to work with women from an org that’s feminist on the inside. Why women? When we connect women to revenue-generating companies, we build an ecosystem that empowers us as earners.
Why Women Founder Cristina Cala with "How To Be Alone" author Lane Moore at Feminist Book Club, hosted at The Wing. Photo by Jessica Palenzuela for The Why Women Project.
WHO WE ARE, AND HOW WE'RE TACKLING THE GAP
Our collective of women in media, marketing and film have more than a decade of experience creating content for brands and publishers like TIME, Condé Nast, WSJ, Huffington Post, Vox, Mic, ESSENCE, Teen Vogue, Glamour, Paper and Google and more.
Our creative women for hire are looking for clients and we want your help to get them hired and get them paid.
We produce feminist events and experiences that sell out. Two that we’re looking for partners for are Why Women Feminist Book Club, an author discussion series filmed by an all-women crew at The Wing, and Why Women SPEAK: Live Stories From the Feminist Gaze.
Cristina Cala moderates Feminist Book Club at The Wing Flatiron. Ticketing for events helps to pay it forward to an all-women film crew hired from the Why Women Creative Collective. Photo by Nadia Bedzhanova for Why Women.
WHAT WE'VE DONE
Founder Cristina Cala launched The Why Women Project in 2017 as a small group of seven creative professionals who traveled from East and West Coast to capture stories at the Women’s March on Washington. Cristina’s idea to assemble a talent collective of women, femmes and non-binary creatives came from the painful realization that, when looking for a female photographer to shoot a major beauty campaign *about empowering women* … there wasn’t one in her direct network. Even after working on the advertising side of publishing for almost a decade.
Since then Why Women has connected with 200 women in our community of socially conscious women and creative pros who come from the most impressive companies in the world. That’s a lot of knowledge to bring to small, women-owned businesses.
In 2018 we launched our first Why Women event series: Feminist Book Club and SPEAK: Live Stories From the Feminist Gaze. To promote the works of creative women and the feminist gaze, we’ve brought in amazing talent to speak and share their work with our community:
- Blair Imani, Muslim LGBTQ activist and author
- Lane Moore, comedian and author
- Reema Zaman, Bangladeshi author
- Gina Apostol, Filipina author
- Erica Génécé, freelance photographer for ESSENCE
- The 36-24-36 Project, a body-positive photo series
- Njambi Morgan, a New York Times-featured poet
Partners
We’ve collaborated with women-owned brands and companies that support the work and creativity of women:
- Unbound
- Shiffon Co.
- The Wing
- Camp David
- Simon & Schuster
- Amberjack Publishing
- Freelancing Females
- PicsArt
Shiffon Co. Founder Shilpa Yarlagadda, Why Women's Cristina Cala and Shiffon's Shreya Chaganti in the Duet Pinky Ring, a promise to #wearthechange in support of women. The jeweler and partner of Feminist Book Club funds young entrepreneurs with profits from the ring. Photo by Alana Steinberg for Shiffon.
Press
We’ve made press appearances in publications that cover business, culture, diversity and identity politics.
Pay!
But most proud of all, our events have generated jobs for:
-
Writers
- Editors
- Photographers
- Filmmakers
- Video editors
Lilit Abgarian and Nadia Bedzhanova lead the Why Women production crew while filming Feminist Book Club. Photo courtesy of Ingrid Vega for The Why Women Project.
WHERE WE’LL PUT YOUR MONEY
Your direct support through our crowdfund allows us to continue to expand memberships, events and programming. Put your money where women want to work—on meaningful projects that directly support creative women and their businesses, and we’ll hire them to capture the story at our next event or brand client.
Your donation will help us form partnerships and community events with collaborators like:
Why Women with "Insurrecto" author Gina Apostol for SPEAK: Live Stories From the Feminist Gaze at Camp David in Industry City in Brooklyn. Photo courtesy of Camp David.
Into it?
There are two amazing ways to support our women's economy. Consider donating! And share our campaign to help future members and women-owned businesses find our services.
With gratitude and love,
Cristina and The Why Women Femme-ily
