Last Wednesday I was sitting on a chair watching my dad sleep.
He’s in the very late stages of cancer and our family didn’t want him left alone.
I was feeling raw, sad, and tired after two weeks of being at home.
I was quietly checking in on a few work things on my laptop.
When I noticed five hate emails pop up one after the other in my inbox.
“Murderer!” screamed one, “no one will ever love you.”
I popped over to my YouTube channel to see what the commotion was about…
and realized Andrew had released my video where I talk proudly about having had an abortion.
I make the videos and write the emails…he picks when to release them. I quickly stepped out of the room and called him…
“What made you think this was a good day to release that video?,” I hissed in the most loving possible tone.
“You know I have to be in a good headspace to deal with a tsunami of hate and attacks with grace and compassion and good humor,” I said.
“Oh shit!” he said, “So sorry, how could I miss that! I’ll take it down immediately.”
I want to release that video; I’m super proud of it and it’s an important message.
But one battle at a time.
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The other night I was lying in bed next to my dad, just being with him.
He woke up from a nap and reached out and held my hand.
I have to mention that technically, he is my step-dad.
Although he came into my life when I was a one year old.
I have to mention this, because the guy who gave me his genes – my biological father…
well, he was a cheater, liar and abuser.
He did his best to mess with me and my mom and then he was gone.
You’ve heard me talk about him.
But the one in my life – the dad who raised me…
He is a model husband and father.
He loved my mom fiercely and true for more than 30 years.
He managed to order her an anniversary present with a gorgeous hand written card from his hospital bed and we still don’t know how.
He raised us kids with love, endless support and kindness.
It has been heartbreaking and brutal to watch him go through this.
Although I can say that I cannot imagine a man being more courageous in his process…
It is…unspeakably hard to see and understand how someone so amazing should have to deal with so much.
As he held my hand, he woke up from his sleep.
He turned to me and said, “You know, business is about making money. But you figured out how to make a business and help people. It’s the way that you help people that impresses me so much. I’m so proud of you for that.”
My dad doesn’t say much.
But those words were everything.
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I was going to send you a hilarious video of levity this week.
I made it a few weeks ago.
But after the killing in Charlottesville, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
It’s not always easy to speak up when you run a business and have a public platform.
It can be really easy to just convince yourself that no one wants to hear about “politics.”
If you stay quiet, everyone gets to imagine that maybe you agree with them.
(And you don’t have to deal with hate-mail.)
But as I read the story of Kenneth Fraizer, the Merck CEO who resigned from Donald Trump’s business panel to protest the hatred.
And how his grandfather was born into slavery…
I was so inspired by his courage and integrity.
As I watched the anti-racism protesters who gave their time, energy and even their lives to standing up to hate…
I knew I couldn’t stay silent.
I found myself weeping in private for everything that black people have been through in this country.
I don’t know what to say…I want to say the right things and I don’t know how.
But I wanted to have the conversation.
To stand with those affected by racism and hate.
And those who take action in the world in the name of justice and equality.
Something that’s hard about talking about everything that’s going on with the world, is that I don’t always have solutions.
But I know that it’s hardest for me when I start to feel alone in the world.
Like no one cares…
And the thing about living right here, right now…
One of the reasons I feel so lucky to be alive…
Is that SO many people care.
So if you were deeply touched by Charlottesville…
If you are feeling pain and sadness over everything that’s happening in the world…
If you want to know that there is goodness and justice and love in other people…
That you are supported and not alone…
You have an ally in me and this community.
For everything that I have personally gone through as a woman…
With my own sexual trauma and oppression…
It was still with all the privilege of being white.
I look to the sexual history of people of color, of black women, of hispanic women, of women of so many other backgrounds…
And wow, I am humbled.
I can’t say I understand.
I do know that I am in absolute awe of the courage, heart and determination these women find to claim their own power, sovereignty and place in the world.
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Many of you face battles I cannot even comprehend.
I cheer for each and every woman who says yes to her sexual and personal empowerment.
But there are some that I know are climbing a steeper hill than others and I cheer for them even harder…
I’ve worked with a women recently in small town in Louisiana to claim her sexual pleasure.
A woman building a healing center in Saudia Arabia.
A woman healing her sexual trauma in India.
A single mother in Kenya who decided to claim her sexuality as her own.
There are many places where sexual empowerment feels more unthinkable…more terrifying…more rebellious…
So many places where the cultural trauma was so deep, the sexual disempowerment so crushing…
And there are so many women from those places who still raise their hands and say, “YES.”
Me.
I’m gonna be the one to turn this around.
I’m gonna be the one who says, “this stops with me.”
I’m gonna be the one who lights up with all the freedom and love that is my God-given right.
There are so many women doing this unbelievable work.
And changing the history of their own lives and those daughters who will follow.
I care, and I’m here and I’m listening.
I am an ally and I will do whatever I can to support you.
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I was at dinner about a month ago with the editor of a major newspaper.
He was touchy and hitting on me a lot in a professional setting.
The conversation turned to my career and he proclaimed…
“We have destroyed sex in this country by giving women social, political and economic power. Men are only turned on by power imbalance where they are more powerful than their woman.”
(He had been drinking.)
I responded, “I have dated several men who were very attracted to my power.”
“Oh, they weren’t attracted to your power,” he said, giving me a look up and down my body.
“If all man wanted was someone less powerful than him, there are lots of better choices than me. If all you want is beauty and no power – then no man would ever be with me. These men chose me because of my power and brilliance; otherwise, they easily could have chosen to be with someone else.”
He was silent for a few moments.
Then he said, “Well, did you marry any of them?”
I woke up feeling sick the next morning, not for myself, because I eventually moved away after he started begging for my phone number.
But for all the women who work in environments like that.
Several people reported his groping behaviour that night.
I only got to feel totally dismissed, groped and subjected to misogynistic viewpoints for about ten minutes.
It was awful and many women spend careers that way.
So, when I saw that James Damore, the ex-google employee who made the argument that women are biologically inferior for tech jobs and can’t handle high-stress roles as well as men, was given a platform to defend his views in that very same newspaper, I felt incredible rage that media outlets can so casually endorse sexism as though it’s something that’s scientifically proven and we just don’t all want to admit because we are sensitive liberals.
(It’s not scientifically proven and it’s okay to not want misogynistic BS in your work place regardless of your politics.)
Now, I know what James Damore wrote was more complex than that.
But it was clear on a few points about the biological inferiority of women when it came to working in tech.
Reading all of this, I felt rage and sadness.
Rage and sadness that people can still take pseudo-science articles that can’t be replicated and justify the unequal treatment of women by it.
Rage and sadness that 62 million people thought “sexual assault” was acceptable behavior for the United States president in 2016.
Rage and sadness that sexual violence, unequal pay, casual misogyny and rampant sexist attitudes for women are still prevalent.
Rage and sadness at the sheer amount of female talent, genius and brilliance has been beaten down by such degrading sexist behavior.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately.
And how I want to feel when my time comes.
And I don’t think it will be, “I’m glad when the moment came and it really mattered, that I held in my opinion just so I could sell a few more online courses.”
I’m fairly sure it will be, “When the moment came and it really mattered, I said, ‘to hell with it,’ and I said what I knew needed to be said.”
Because dad is right.
Making money is necessary.
But it isn’t what you think about on your death bed.
It’s the impact you had on others.
The choices you made.
The things you said.
The way that you loved.
I’m sorry that I can’t snap my fingers and bring out the society I know so many of us dream for in our hearts.
But, I want you to know how many of us care.
How many of us stand with you.
How many of us are a light in the moments of deepest hate.
How many of us will tell a joke and laugh with you in wild rebellion against the serious forces of oppression.
How many of us will not accept a world of racism, homophobia, misogyny and hate.
How many of us mean it when we say, I am here to build a better world, a better society, a better planet and I care enough to take action, to use my voice, to love even when it’s hard.
I stand with you.
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And I’ll be back next week with a lot of levity and humor.
(And to sell you something because #business.)
And we’ll keep talking about the things that matter.
And being ridiculous.
Because without laughter, love and lightness…
Without all of the beautiful emails you send me and comments that you post…
If I gave into seriousness, disconnection and heaviness…
I would not have the courage to do what I do.
So I invite you to cry with me when it’s genuinely sad.
And rage with me when it’s unjust.
And love with me when it gets hard…and just because.
And take action to build a society where each of us is dignified with the opportunity to realize our fullest selves.
And to laugh with me always…because laughter rings with the freedom and beauty that makes it all worth fighting for.
Love,
Layla