ROSHINI'S BLOG

Tonight I attended the 2009 Joint Dinner of Women’s Professional Associations.  Proceeds from the event went to the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota.  Long name but a concise and great cause:  empower girls to become strong women.

The event was a sell-out with more than 600 business women networking, meeting, and listening to keynote speaker Lois Quam.  Watching other keynote speakers is a double-edge experience for me.  I so want to just focus on their content, but I can’t help but do a review of their delivery.  I won’t get into the latter here.

I will mention how Quam talked about women’s role in a green economy.  One line that hit me was how she compared the traditionally male reaction to stress:  fight or flight.  And what she called a more feminine reaction:  tend and befriend.  Ultimately, she concluded there’s a place for both styles and thus both genders in a world that works (not exactly her words but my paraphrasing).  But I’d like to continue to ponder this “tend and befriend” mentality.  I invite you to do the same.  Essentially, it means women react to stress by trying to make their environments safer.  They tend to their needs and the needs of those they love to make the premises secure.  The befriend part is what’s even cooler to me…and what was apparent at the event tonight.  The basic “we” mentality of women really helps them become great networkers and enables them to get so many things done at once.  They actually reach out to others openly and look at the group as a more powerful method than the individual.  It’s actually befuddling then why women continue to have less power generally and continue to be considered “less” in many parts of the world.

A quick shout out to Sri Lankan rap singer M.I.A.  She was nominated for a Grammy at the awards last night and was actually due to give birth the same day.  M.I.A. was scheduled to perform but had said in previous interviews she most likely would not.

Well, she did perform.  And lucky for a lot of people, she didn’t give birth on stage.  She performed in an outfit that only a female rocker who’s pregnant could wear.  Not your usual maternity attire.  I congratulate her for performing, looking good, and holding her own on a stage with four male rappers.

There aren’t too many Sri Lankans in the public eye, so I’m happy to highlight an exceptional talent.  She’s also up for an Oscar for her song in Slumdog Millionaire.  Perhaps she and baby will be on stage together…

Oh, what a bummer for the Arizona Cardinals tonight.  I was rooting for them.  Great underdog story.  Plus, ya gotta love a team whose main color is red.  In any event, this was a memorable Superbowl.  Both teams should feel good about how they performed overall and not so stellar about a few clutch-moment-chokes.  But that’s what kept it interesting.  Ultimately, they gave us a great back and forth and performed like pros.

Great job Cardinals.  The Superbowl party where I watched was strongly in your favor.  Congrats Steelers on making a couple football records.  You probably deserved the W.  But could you do something about those uniforms?