The #NoMeanGirls Conference Focuses on Women Supporting Women
In 2015, Plaid for Women‘s founder and CEO Shivaun Palmer was speaking to a group of women in Dallas, TX, sharing details about the supportive, woman-forward culture of her organization with the captive audience. “She said [that] if you are here to support other women and their success, we are your tribe,” observes Palmer’s colleague Sarah Webb, President and COO of Plaid for Women. “However, if you are here to tear down other women [or] gossip, hit the door, because at Plaid for Women, there are no mean girls allowed. You could have heard a pin drop in the room. We knew then that we were on to something.”
Fast-forward two years, and Plaid is now preparing to launch their first #NoMeanGirls National Conference this fall. The conference will take place in Dallas (right back where it all started!) between October 6 and October 8, and — like the rest of Plaid’s endeavors — it will encourage women to focus on the holistic, well-rounded “Business of Life.”
“Our conference will include women from all backgrounds, all walks of life, with different goals,” Webb explains. “However, we all recognize the need for self-care and supporting each other.” We hear that! In addition to more standard conference fare like breakout sessions (on topics like “Invisible Rules in the Workplace,” “Transitioning into Entrepreneurship,” “A New Brand of Mom,” and “When Mean Girls Grow Up”) and keynote speeches (from, among others, Mica May, the Oprah-endorsed CEO of lifestyle brand May Designs and Katie Goodman, an award-winning musical comic), the #NoMeanGirls event will also feature signature cocktails (yum!), a working session over Sunday brunch, and a Thelma and Louise-inspired pajama party.
Plaid hopes that the conference’s wide range of programming will encourage women across generations and backgrounds to embrace each other’s successes, recognize their fullest potential, live an authentic life, and fight mean-girl behavior in middle school and beyond. In their year-round work for Plaid, Webb and her team meet plenty of well-respected, well-established boss ladies, many of whom still carry memories of the mean girls from their teenage years. Of one such woman “who appeared to be the epitome of success,” Webb relates, “even though she is in her early sixties, she still remembers that [mean girl] experience. The conference is designed to help us let go of those experiences or build on them in a positive way to make us the women we want to be.”
A room (and a weekend!) full of women who can recognize that Mean Girls may be the greatest movie of our time (duh), but that it’s maybe not the ideal playbook for good behavior? Sounds like a good time to us! “Personally, I’m excited to share the #NoMeanGirls messaging with other women,” Webb shares. “It’s time for us to stop blaming ourselves, striving for perfection, and missing out on life because we have an inner voice telling us we are not good enough. It’s also exciting to be in the same place with other women who genuinely want to support one another. I’m going to soak up the girl power.”
Now, that’s so fetch. So fetch, in fact, that we’re willing to try to make fetch happen.
For more information and details on how to register for the event yourself, check out the #NoMeanGirls National Conference page.
How can we spread the #NoMeanGirls message? Tweet us @BritandCo!
(Photo via Plaid for Women)
