By Brianna Wallen
News Editor
photo | Wade Barillaro
From left to right, Anita Ford Saunders, Jenny Boom Boom, Maryam Khan, Dolores Dégagé Hopkins and Cynthia Torres.
In over 1,100 companies, women hold approximately 25.1% of senior management and leadership positions according to a survey from S&P Global.
With a quarter of women filling leadership and prestigious roles in the workforce, it is important for those that occupy those roles to share their testimonies.
The Women’s Leadership Academy and Women’s & Gender Studies Department hosted a Women’s Resiliency Forum to inspire and empower attendees in the School of Business on Thursday, Oct. 24.
The event kicked off with networking over small plates and was followed by an inspiring discussion.
The panelists included Maryam Khan, a state representative in the Connecticut General Assembly, Sgt. Cynthia Torres from the university police, Jenny Boom Boom, a radio personality at HOT 93.7.
Dolores Dégagé Hopkins, a photographer, performer and trans activist and Anita Ford Saunders, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, of Middlesex County.
Yvonne Renee Davis, the international relations expert of DAVISWorldTraining, was the special guest moderator
“Life sometimes just kind of makes some of us more resilient by putting us through tough situations where you don’t have an option but to be resilient. It’s sink or swim,” Khan said. “the more you swim, you kind of just, keep swimming.”
Khan, who is the first Muslim female elected to the Connecticut House of Representatives, said that she remained resilient through raising her children while pursuing a higher education.
The other speakers had also defied the odds and broken down barriers by occupying roles in male-dominated and white spaces.
Ford Saunders said that she was the most resilient in the communication and public relations workforce.
“By the time I graduated from college, there were absolutely no people of color in any positions of power in television, let alone a woman. It was a lot of pushing,” Saunders said.
In a male-dominated field, Jenny Boom Boom said that she had to become one of the boys to be resilient in the radio business.
“I could keep up with all of them. I could actually beat out all of them now,” Jenny Boom Boom said. “I had to learn how to be really good with business and great at my craft.”
Along with resilience, these women underwent moments of adversity and trauma.
Dégagé Hopkins said that when she came out as a gay person in a very small town in Texas in 1975, she was immediately excommunicated and kicked out of the Baptist church. Through this, she had to navigate life and her career.
“I had to be very resilient through every job, photography and ballet, to just live in my own self, and not really know who I was,” Hopkins said.
While these speakers have paved the way for the next generation, there is still more work to be done to bridge the gap between women fulfilling leadership roles.
According to the National Policing Institute, only approximately 12% of police officers in the United States are women. Torres believes that there should be a change, with more women joining the industry and occupying higher levels.
“We have the statistics to show that women need to be in policing more,” Torres said.
Due to being the minority, Torres said there is more work to be done in order for there to be changes within the police industry.
“Authenticity as a woman is not freedom because we’re still only 3% of leadership in the United States, and it should change,” Torres said.
As these panelists continue to their legacy, they also left insightful advice to help the next generation of leaders.
“Try to be your authentic self. The harder you try, and the stronger and steadier you stand as being yourself and believing in yourself, you will breed resilience,” Ford Saunders said.
