I never really felt I belonged. Anywhere. Until one day I began to notice why and how I could maybe, just maybe one day, find belonging.
Sure. Maybe as someone who appears to be "white" and from a "nice family" I "should" have a sense of belonging, be grateful for my privilege and find somewhere to sit nicely and not complain about feeling included. But the truth was, I simply did not feel I had a place where I felt truly seen, as myself and ultimately, included.
Born Into a Matriarchy
I was born out of wedlock into a kind home of my mother's Eastern European family who saw that I was fed, clothed and to school on time. Outside of those basic necessities, emotional support in the early 1980s was to be found elsewhere. My mother was initially shamed by her father, my grandfather, for having gotten pregnant and not being married. Eventually, my grandfather accepted my mother and me so we were allowed in the house to be raised by my mother's mother and her mother. I am effectively a matriarchal baby with much love from three amazing generations of women, the same lineage I trace in my origin story.
Yet I still was not sure I belonged with these kind folks. My father, for his small part, was not available for child rearing nor did my mother want his "overbearing" Italian and Spanish family involved. To this day, I wish I could have had more time with those loud folks because maybe, I would have felt more included in that tribe. And even more so, my mother wanted to raise me in the guilt-light Lutheran church and not in the seemingly domineering worship that was my dad's Jewish and Catholic roots. Sure, there were certainly lots of options on where I could be included but not really any one space where I felt home or even really deeply connected.
Inclusivity matters to me because I know what it feels like to search for it. And I have been searching since inception.
A Disruptor From the Start
As I entered grade school and on into high school, my identity was stewed in a variety of places that never quite felt like me. My mother sent my sister and me to a Christian day school that was essentially free if we were members of the church. Not exactly church-going Jews, I found a lot of the teachings of this school to be really archaic and confusing when taught just before science class. As a result, I often found myself in trouble at school because I would ask many questions that would ultimately land me in the principal's office. I saw the "trouble" I was causing to not be problematic. Asking questions should not be a crime, right? The questions were viewed as disruptions, and asking why the status quo was the status quo was not the sort of thing teachers appreciated.
High school was not much better with its express lane socialization and mean girl groupies around every corner. Though I was social in many groups, my peers on the soccer team did not really embrace me for the mashup of ethnic convergence I was beginning to see myself as. Becky always asked me why my dad never came to the games. Back off, Becky!
I did feel somewhat accepted by my theater nerd friends as my quirky self but not entirely the slightly queer, bisexual person I was blooming into. And my fellow student council members saw my outgoing nature as helpful but sometimes too loud and often asked if I could tone it down. I am tiring, but it was and still is generally a futile attempt. That loud voice got me elected as Student Council President. Sorry not sorry.
College: Learning About Learning
Then I got to college and learned about learning. I came to understand that the small world I was raised in, with limited emotional bandwidth and paid for on food stamps, could be changed with access to more information, more community and even more sense of belonging. I began to see inclusivity as a feeling and not a destination. I began to understand my early days as a "problem child" were really just training grounds to be a thought leader, an industry disruptor and ultimately, a business activist.
We as human beings are social creatures that require community and the inherent sense of belonging that I would argue is in our souls' longing.
Building Spaces Where Everyone Is Welcome
And now as a woman in business, particularly in the business of helping to dismantle oppressive systems by building better ways of doing things, I recognize this ongoing process of finding belonging with oneself so I can continue to build welcoming spaces for others.
I know that there remain many, many reasons for the lack of inclusivity which include but are not limited to racism, misogyny, bigotry and a whole list of isms that one can spend their entire life attempting to dismantle. Please know that in no way do I consider my experience of not being included the same as yours. The point I would like to make is that we can find empathy through our own experiences, albeit the experiences are different but similar in the feelings they can create.
What Inclusivity Means at Business 4 Good
The notion of making space to include all of us is truly radical. It is honoring each person as we are, not as we could be if we were different. It may seem simple but as it turns out, implementing inclusivity for oneself or for the many is hard work because it actually means leaning into community, and that community needs to be welcoming first. At Business 4 Good, we are building that welcome from the ground up.
I wanted to be open with my own upbringing to share that it may be possible that many folks, like myself, did not know what inclusivity really meant until they found it for themselves. As I began to discover for myself, I decided I wanted to make space, build bigger stages and bust open doors for any and all folks who have ever felt the same about their own sense of belonging.
Inclusivity is a feeling, not a destination. And building it requires us to know our own roots of being first.
So I leave this entry with a question for you, dear reader: Do you live more quietly than you would secretly wish to? What have you done today to question the status quo? How can we together see each other as value add to this incredible world we get to live in and also fulfill our own wildest dreams without excluding?
If you are interested in talking more about your feelings of belonging, about honoring your body or finding real community instead of the extractive kind, of being included and advocating for inclusivity for our world, I want to talk to you. I mean it. We are building a new economic model for women in business, powered by collective intelligence and technology. Your sovereignty matters. Your knowledge has value. And your seat at the table is waiting. After all, we all deserve to be here.
Love,
Rose
