031: Reshma Saujani — Teaching Our Girls to Be Brave, Not Perfect

In 2019, women earn .79 cents for every dollar a man makes. Though we can attribute the gender pay gap to several factors including occupational segregation, bias against working mothers, and circumstances like racial bias, disability, and access to education, there’s no denying numbers and that we still have a lot of work to do to create an even playing field. On today’s episode, I am thrilled to have a woman and mother who has been an advocate for closing the gender gap throughout her career. Reshma Saujani is the Founder and CEO of Girls Who Code, the international nonprofit organization working to close the gender gap in tech and change the image of what a computer programmer looks like and does. It has reached 185,000 girls in all 50 states, Canada, and the UK. In 2019, Girls Who Code was awarded Most Innovative Non-Profit by Fast Company. Reshma is the author of the international bestseller Brave, Not Perfect and has a podcast with the same name and the New York Times bestseller Girls Who Code: Learn to Code and Change the World. Reshma’s TED talk, “Teach girls, bravery not perfection,” has more than four million views and has sparked a worldwide conversation about how we’re raising our girls. She began her career as an attorney and activist. In 2010, she surged onto the political scene as the first Indian American woman to run for U.S. Congress. During the race, she visited local schools and saw the gender gap in computing classes firsthand, which led her to start Girls Who Code. She is a graduate of the University of Illinois, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Yale Law. Her work on behalf of young women has earned her broad recognition on lists including: Fortune World’s Greatest Leaders; Fortune 40 Under 40; WSJ Magazine Innovator of the Year; Forbes Most Powerful Women Changing the World; and Fast Company 100 Most Creative People, among others. She lives in New York City with her husband, Nihal, their son, Shaan, and bulldog, Stanley. Meet My Guest:

WEBSITE: ReshmaSaujani.com

WEBSITE: GirlsWhoCode.com

INSTAGRAM: @reshmasaujani

INSTAGRAM: @girlswhocode

FACEBOOK: /reshma.saujani

FACEBOOK: /GirlsWhoCode

LINKEDIN: @reshma-saujani

Show Notes:

01:51: Introduction

04:03: How Reshma and Kanika met

05:10: Background

07:10: Changing your given name

10:00: Using your life in the service of others

12:30: Rejection, failure and recovery

15:55: Women in technology

20:20: Girls are change makers

22:40: Learning to code

27:55: Allowing boys to be vulnerable and emotional

30:00: Pregnancy and APS

39:40: Learning how to prioritize you

40:50: Mom Sense moment

41:11: Quote of the day: "Brave, not perfect"

41:46: Mom Haul

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