Before I dive in to the values and intersectional feminist business practices that inform my businesses and my work with clients…
I want to say a massive thank you to Kelly Diels for the permission to borrow heavily from her own values and business practices framework.
I have learned – and continue to learn – so much from Kelly’s intersectional feminist approach. I highly suggest you sign up for her mind-blowing Sunday Love Letters which “contain feminist essays and invocations.”
A few ways I’m striving to build an anti-racist and feminist business and life*
*This is a work in progress 🙂
Values
I hold a systemic analysis and my feminism is intersectional and inclusive.
I enthusiastically support Black Lives Matter and the movement to dismantle white supremacy.
I know that gender is a social construct and I am in solidarity with my trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming siblings. That means I do not work with TERFs.
Fatphobia and Diet Culture are social justice issues, so I also do not work with people or companies promoting diet culture, weight loss and fat phobia.
I believe that we are all culture makers and that we can use our culture making power deliberately, to create new realities for ourselves and our world.
Hiring + Money
- I pay everyone — childcare provider, contractors etc — a MINIMUM of a living wage or at least $30 an hour. (That’s the floor.)
- I do not use uncompensated interns or volunteers.
Accessibility
- I redistribute 10% of my income to Black community-led initiatives, causes, or individuals. Most recently, I redistributed some funds to Scarborough Mutual Aid, a community-led mutual aid resource for people who are in financial need but don’t qualify for employment insurance or CERB (the Canadian government’s financial aid for people impacted by COVID-19). Click here for more info.
- For every 5 clients, I take on one client at a sliding scale rate
- I offer payment plans; I believe payment plans are a form of financial accessibility AND they’re good for my own personal income stability (h/t Bear Hebert, Toi Smith, Kelly Diels)
- Currently I don’t charge any extra fees or interest for accessing payment plans to work with me
Solidarity, Self-Preservation, and Culture-Making
- I have pledged not to speak at events or on podcasts where the speakers are or have been disproportionately white and encouraged other leaders to do the same.
- I believe in signal-boosting and sharing the work of the people influencing me. There is so much brilliance in our community and it’s a joy to be part of it.
- I strive to use apps and software that are made by companies founded by feminists and women and BIPOC (and, and, and)
- I do not engage in money-shaming as a marketing tactic (or any kind of tactic!)
- When I’m critiquing, I name patterns, not people, because
- This is about systemic change, not changing out individual “bad apples”. I want to keep the focus on policies, practices, norms and institutions
- I’m not here to destroy anyone’s livelihood or build my brand by tearing other people down
- We are all in the water so we are all wet
- I value critique and feedback and will take the time to process it, learn from it, and integrate it (thank you!!!)
“Flourishing is feminist.” -Kelly Diels
Most of the section below is borrowed with permission from Kelly Diels’ The Wealthy Feminist article.
A lot of women I know have huge overheads – energetic and financial — because we’re supporting not only ourselves, but also our children, our elders, extended family, community and causes. So when I see a woman or femme making bank, I’m not ever going to impose a limit to what she ought to make. There’s no such thing as too much.
What I believe we should pay attention to, however, is how those profits are generated. Are the labour practices within her business just? What is her social impact?
I decided to change my business model to a hybrid group program, Guidance Counselling for Adults so that I’m not constantly launching and I don’t have to work seven days a week (!!!). This is a more feminist, humane way to live. I cannot be a caregiver or a lover or a mother or a friend on my previous rate and exhausting workload.
I decided to price for profit so that I can generate capital to finance new projects. Cash flow is essential because I’m not ever going to offload my costs onto unpaid interns. No capital, no ambitious culture-making projects. And capital comes from profit and profit comes from higher rates.
In other words, I decided to generate positive cash flow and net worth in my business and in my personal life. I am striving, imperfectly and in a rapid learning curve, to do that while also creating abundance and safety for the people who choose to work with me.
I am going to generate those resources for myself, my company, my employees, my family, and my community and materially support the efforts of everyone else at the wall as they do that too.
I am going to share my learnings about how to generate the resources to sustain ourselves.
It is an act of personal power and a counter-cultural move to preserve ourselves as financially independent women.
As long as we make sure the methods by which we’re generating net worth are just and generative, we take nothing away from anyone by having revenue, money in the bank, and assets.
In fact, we become assets and resources ourselves.
Imagine if women and femmes and queer folks and disabled folks and people of colour, as a collective, had abundant resources and finances. Imagine what we could do for ourselves and each other.
I believe one of the pillars of our just future is creating the skills and capacities and social conditions and policies we need to ensure our own financial sustainability and abundance. We cannot share or invest what we do not have.
We need those resources and we need each other at the wall.
I need – and want- to earn money.
I do this unapologetically.
And I invite you to do the same while embodying anti-racist and feminist practices.