The successful women have left the building

The successful women have left the building
By Evergreen
Oregon writer

What’s wrong with this picture?

I just received an invitation to a motivation seminar in Portland. I noticed that out the success story speakers there is only one woman out of the ten speakers listed on the program. One out of ten? I am not trying to equalize everything. Instead, I  find it sad that there was not at least one more woman of prominence known nationwide that might make the list.

I personally would have loved to hear from the 40 year old single mom Olympic swimmer who won the Silver Medal in 2008. How about Meg Whitman of EBay fame? Melinda Gates? There are many qualified women who could make the list. Then again maybe those women motivational speakers find better success with the smaller women focused seminars. Maybe we should encourage those to upgrade into the big seminars like this one. Who would not want to share the stage with the likes of Bill Cosby and Rudy Giuliani?

The one woman speaker at the “Get Motivated” Oregon conference is former First Lady Laura Bush. Laura’s best work during her term came from her international campaign to raise the rights, education and opportunities of women in third world nations. It is just odd to see those opportunities being missed with this conference.

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