 Welcome. Good afternoon. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. Time for responsible change. I'm going to get right into it because I'm having some problems with my internet connection here. So we have with us today three truly outstanding women leaders in no particular order. Sandra Sims, former judge in Hawaii State Courts, the author and now working on her second book, and a leader in community service here, Jelani Jefferson Exum, now the dean at University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, and well-renowned scholar, and Tina Patterson in Germantown, Maryland, entrepreneur, coach, mediator, arbitrator, master of many trades, and all really, really valued voices in what we're talking about today, which is from a woman's perspective, what's missing, what's broken, what most stands out to you as in need of help and guidance. Jelani, welcome back. Any thoughts? Thank you very much. I'm really happy to be here and happy to join this conversation, especially with these really impressive women. So thank you, Chuck, for the invitation. I appreciate it. In the space that I'm in, one thing that I find, and I think it's a perspective that women don't have to be the ones to bring to the table, but often are the ones to bring to the table in institutional spaces. We talk about work-life balance, and I don't know what that is. I'm the mother of three little kids. I have yet to figure that out, but I think a recognition of the whole person and that working in a way that recognizes that people have whole lives outside of what they do at work. And I think that's true whether you're a woman, a man, non-binary, whether you have children, don't have children. It doesn't really matter, but it often falls to women to be the ones to step up and to kind of make space. And I've tried to do that in my own leadership to make space to have, to recognize the fullness of people in their work and to make those sorts of accommodations and flexibility so that we can really thrive in our spaces. And to me, that's something that can really stand to have more of a push in many institutional spaces. What a fantastic insight that in these times where we've become so disconnected from each other to step back and recognize that disconnection is within us and our pieces as well. Sandra, Tina, your thoughts on that? Oh, I think she's made an excellent point with regard to what women bring to the table in terms of looking at this balance. I agree, of course, it never quite gets to the point of being balanced, but it is certainly something that's being considered. I've been on with Louise before and we've sort of began our careers in law at a time where there weren't many women in the notion of their being the concept of balance between your family and responsibilities was unheard of and something you should keep under the table and not share that with anyone because nobody wants to know about that. But I think it's one of the important things that's happening, not just in the legal field, but in corporate spaces in all areas of life where we have more women coming in, we're having a chance to look and see how it is that we work to integrate those values that we claim are important, this notion of family, but at the same time you can't value family without taking into consideration that women and fathers as well who are in the workplace have to take those things into consideration in how they operate in what they're doing. So I think it's an important piece that I guess it's women that had to bring this kind of to the forefront to make it so that we can now be in a place to have discussions about these things and to actually address it with some solutions. I was in one of my other group meetings and we did with the Seroptimus and we were doing a program with Elizabeth Steel who works for Zoom and all of that and one of the things that we talked about was she was asking that in lieu of her fee that we do a donation to the Child Care Center at the university and some of the women in our group are you know old during a come from a time where the notion of having child care at the university for faculty for students or even in the workplace was just like unheard of and so they were really really excited about the notion that this is something that we are bringing and talking about now providing child care for students in college. What a concept you know yeah. Inay, your thoughts. Shalani, I like the way you framed it as the whole person and I think about this in terms of my role both as a business owner but also as a public official and we see this time and time again where there is like you said Sondra there's the public persona and then there's the I'm someone's daughter I'm someone's aunt and that persona does not always is not always intended to be a public persona. In the past it was you know you're the public official this is how you should appear you go to events you're by yourself that you get a text message that's a family requesting something what do you do you stay or do you go and if you go how do you explain do you need to explain but it also has made me think that when you said the whole person I was attending a presentation the other day a colleague was speaking and she talked about and it when she was explaining this I thought why have we not had these discussions before I and I guess I've been in a corporate space long enough where I somewhat taken the transition for granted without recalling that at one point this didn't exist and she was talking about lactation space where you didn't have to go into a lady's room and stand in the middle of the lady's room because you needed to express she she's and she talked about this in the context of being an arbitrator and being in a space where there was one woman's room stall and she was on a panel and needed to use the lady's room because there was nothing else available to her and it was just that idea and I thought you know I take it for granted now that I'm in a building that has a wellness space and that wellness space can be used in and in various capacities um so it's it's having that that conversation that that I think sometimes is missing and not shaming the person or putting the person on this on the spot um but also the recognition of it and saying you know what we need to do this if we really want to have charity and in our workspaces in our institutions um yeah it's it's it's been mind boggling I'm gonna say this last thing and then I'll stop I recall listening to a presentation that included elected officials and this was um mayor browser from the district of Columbia and there were two other elected officials and she was saying as public officials we sometimes need support you know we we need you to have our backs when you see the media tearing us apart or when you see a story don't just automatically believe it or give us the opportunity give us the space to be a real person to be that mom to be that aunt to be that wife to be that girlfriend and not hold us to the standard of you know oh my gosh you know she she she had to get off the zoom session because her child was crying or she had to get off the zoom session because the dog was barking she's a person she there's other demands on her life and not just this multifaceted right and can I pick up on that that topic of shame because that's really you know what I've tried to um to think about is that we put so much shame on the fact of whether it's about you know motherhood and you know I love that you brought up lactation I mean I my kids are eight six and three so I'm just coming out of that that phase of working you know through through all of that and having to deal with feelings of you know do you do you hide things and I um I think I've been fortunate to have a level of support but I've made it very intentional to talk about my children I'm to talk about their schedule and what I'm doing outside of of workspace um when I was you know nursing children and I had to bring pumping things to to work I will just you know with my first child I was a little bit nervous and by the time I got to the third one I was telling everybody because I was like why do we why do we not talk about this you know I think it's important for someone to know how I've had to adjust my day around a pumping schedule and so I think you know I've I've taken it and I see this as very important for for women leaders but really it should be everybody's responsibility but to really try to speak out about things because I think it helps to take shame away from others because it doesn't have to just be about you know being a mother and children and having children it can be about who you know you're just the fullness of your life perhaps you care for other people um perhaps it's not even maybe it's just about the your own personal mental time that you need maybe you can't do that meeting at seven o'clock because you really need that time for yourself and that's okay so just you know taking away the shame of saying I actually am a whole person with with full needs and sometimes I need to make adjustments so that I can have you know some some semblance of joy and peace and happiness in my life and that's fine write that down a whole person I love it I love it I'm sorry that's a whole person with do you say full needs you know I can't I can't repeat I don't know it's all it's all in the moment a hope yes a whole person with full with full needs you know and so you have to take care of all of that and it's and it's I think it's kind of taken more women in in these fields and in these spaces to allow these conversations to even take place and I hate to keep parking back to age but I'm old what can I say but I remember when I was first on the bench and this is like in the early 90s I was you know doing trials and you know the pre-trial conference you do things like set the time and what time you're going to be adjourning and what the jury's going to do and I remember an instance where one of our very very prominent and you know well-known defense attorneys in pre-trial conference just kind of said you know you're and I'd like to leave it for because I've got to pick the kids up and I thought oh that's fine with me we'll just put that into the schedule so we just told the jurors we're adjourning every day at four o'clock we didn't have to explain and say because you know he has to pick the kids up there you go it's okay he was a whole person it's exactly and and and and and we're learning to better um to see people in that in that context to see people in that way uh and and I think that bodes well for us as a as a nation even you know because I think more of that is something other parts of the world in or maybe not we still let along we go and you've brought out a couple of things I mean Tina you're talking about Catherine Simpson who was talking about a building which had no facilities or women at all this was not your neighborhood Starbucks this was the world court the highest international court there is and there was no place for women because there was an assumption that women were not going to be part of that process in any capacity and the other thing that the holistic emphasis and insight helps us realize is look at how much more is asked expected and demanded of women now to be a whole person is exponentially greater look at all that it encompasses how do you manage that well you know I I think this is a point that's really come out during the pandemic too so there are all these studies you know it's so in the in the law school space for instance um there are these studies now about scholarship production so um you know producing articles writing research and um they're showing that during the pandemic the scholarly output of women really lagged behind that of men and um it's not surprising because you think about the walls that were broken down between work and home um and you know and so so you find you know a person finds themselves in a space where they're working and doing all the things that they do at home which often disproportionately fall on the shoulders of women that sort of are you know sort of the um in many traditional um households and so the you know the the outcome then is yeah for um for a woman in a space where she's doing that extra um you know the kind of scholars in this area talk about feminized labor right where she's doing that extra that extra labor plus trying to work um work does fall off you never get to you know you're not leaving the house to to do those things you don't you're not able to to um to kind of have that separation whereas um men were finding more space and this is of course you know not not for everyone but these are just what the statistics were bearing out that um men were finding more space um you know I'm at home I can you know I can do more work um and so it really was highlighting the I think what you're pointing out Chuck that being you know this this this whole person really exposes right that oftentimes we have uneven and unequal shares of of burdens in life right um and again you know this is something that's changing you know dynamics are changing in families and and all of that um but it just still still holds out and the the pandemic really really bore that out and you know we saw that in work production um but I think as we were are returning you know many people back to work um in some sort of way this is really a good time to sort of rethink you know um what we really should be doing like you know why are we why do we have this work you know non-work separation in the way that we do that makes it sound that really ignores what's happening in the rest of your life why don't we just open it up and say you know we've all been working from from home with kids running into zooms and pets and you know all the likes so we all know it's there so now let's just let's just confront it and and work in a way that yeah that that's really realistic you know yeah so that's actually been a plus in some ways because uh we're now able to see that and accept that this is just this is just how it is this is what people do this is what this is how families operate uh we and and for women many women we're sort of used to having to do more than one thing at a time and for the most part do it pretty well I'm going to pull the thread in a different direction because I think we do we we want to do a lot of things well and we can do a lot of things well but there's a price that comes with that and I think this pandemic has brought that to bear which is the exhaustion um the the sheer exhaustion of it all and we hear the word self-care we hear the words lean in but I think the pandemic has really brought that to the forefront to what does that really look like what does it really look like to say I need self-care does that mean I close my bedroom door and say I need 15 minutes don't knock on the door or I'm going to go sit in the car in the garage don't come to the car and you know I'm giving these examples they may seem a little out there but it's that moment where I I need to catch my breath I need to I need to be still for a second and figure out what's next there's a lot of demands on my time my energy and what's where am I going where I really need to be going um if you have poured out all the water in your cup and you're thirsty there's nothing left for you and I think this pandemic has really helped I'll say for me remember that I need to leave some water in the cup for me if I'm going to be helping others I can't help them if I'm thirsty if there's nothing left to sustain me and it's that it's the conversation of selfishness being self-centered and saying it's okay to carve out that time it's okay to say no and and feel comfortable saying no um without feeling guilt and I I think I'm of a generation where you don't say no you know you say yes because you're supposed to and that's what that's what nice young ladies do they say they say yes even though they painstakingly want to say no and I don't want to do it but you say yes just the same and I think we're shifting that tie to no I can't do that I don't have the capacity to do that right now um if you need this immediately I I can't provide that here's some other options yeah I 1000 agreed I also think that um leaders have to step in to make space for other people to do that also because one thing that I think you know going back to the pandemics highlighted that um you know making space for yourself self-care in many ways can be pretty um you have to be in a pretty privileged position often to be able to really make that a reality so for some you know it that's difficult to do um but so that's why I think it has to be on the on the minds of whoever's in a leadership position in certain spaces to try to protect that for other people and to say you know okay it's okay to take this time I'm putting it out there that that's you know if you if you need that that that's that's okay but you know it's hard because you know for some for some people it's not um they don't have the space to be able to do that they don't have the privileged position to be able to take advantage of real self-care absolutely absolutely particularly when you think about the folks that are on the sort of the front lines of providing the services that we now say we need to have in order to get through these times you know like the grocery clerks and the delivery people who come and bring your groceries and and certainly you know those that are in the hospitals and stuff I kind of I have a neighborhood safely here and it's it always strikes me when I go there um the women who work as clerks are there all the time and they have families they have children they have responsibilities they have you know kids get not a school or meeting to have you know someone help with the homework and stuff but they're there they're there every day you know so I try to make it a point to say hello something do something sometimes for them because yeah we just count that and take that for granted that but they're not in a position like some of some of us some of you to say I'm going to carve out this time for me um our demands and our societal demands fall on on a certain group certain class of folks and they're there they don't get to say I need I need you know I need to do self-care I need to go get a massage or something you know it's not available and we have to be you know sort of mind if I think what you've made a good point to Lonnie about leadership being able to you know recognize and understand how important that is to and perhaps we're starting to see more of that um in some of these places where you're starting to realize wait a minute I've got to look out for my folks here too I'm asking a lot of them but I can be mindful of what it is that they need to take care of themselves as well good point I really like that yeah so those are those are uh you know some of the things that are this pandemic is really um close some things open some things expose some things taught us some things and I we may there's a lot that's kind of messy but I think we're going to learn some things and come out of this maybe five years from now with some different perspectives on how we you know take care of a lot of the situations in our environments with our you know with our families with our you know workplaces and and a lot of that I you know you guys are probably in a much better uh place to see where those changes are actually taking place and how vividly they're going and you're probably better capable of speaking to that um than I am but I think we're we're we're we're headed ultimately in a positive direction ultimately yeah yeah I think with the with the pandemic it's you know we can take lessons and move forward with them if we want to right and um I think it has provided an opportunity there's so much was exposed I mean from everything whether we're talking about um you know economic disparities race disparities you know when it comes to health and and access to care you know just just across the board um and and I think you know so we so things are front and center and so then it's really just on us in our own spaces and how much we want to take from that and actually move forward um like so you know I'll give an example um in the space that I'm in so thinking about law schools and mine in particular you know in a lot of places I've done this um adopting flexible work schedules realizing that um that you know sure it's good for folks to to uh to show up and and be present at work but what's really more important is for us to have a functioning environment and that doesn't always mean that we stick to this kind of traditional um work day it is really like looking and saying okay what do we need to get done what's the best way to do it what takes care of everybody in the best way and so you know those those sorts of things can come from this um but it's only if we want to be in if we want to intentionally grab those lessons and then put them into practice hey so how do women continue to move the needle to change this model in the ways you've been talking about well I'll jump in and say I think we keep talking and doing you know it's um but to Tina's point though that can be tiring you know so it's it's just that we talk about having allies in lots of different spaces this is another place so this you know in the same way that when we talk about diversity and equity and inclusion it shouldn't fall all on the shoulders of people of color same thing when we're talking about these other you know equality issues women you know while while we because of just our perspective and life experiences and all that may bring certain things to the table it shouldn't fall completely on our shoulders to keep the ball moving so we speak up we talk and then you know other folks needs to come to the table yeah and um and move things as well because it can be tiring yeah and and and that's what you're doing even with these discussions Chuck I mean we've had quite a few and um nothing to solve I'll win but I think it's important that there be this opportunity there be this place where this can continue to take place I agree with you Jelani it can't be you know us you know holding the world up by ourselves people have to join in and I think and I think also you're the generation to come and I don't know what you call them that's the next generation I think is coming up with a different perspective on how um these matters have to be managed and taken care of as I think just from that alone I mean even listening to my own um you know my own I don't want to I hate hesitant calls of children because they're they're functioning adults who have some very strong views about you know how to how to handle things how to function things and you know deciding that I think I would rather you know work from home I'd rather there's a work-life balance I think I can do what I do here uh in my own space you don't necessarily need me to come into that because I know what I'm doing and so I get less engineer talking they can do that but and then to have that view accept it and said oh I guess you can do that yes okay fine go ahead and do that so you know that's that's the next generation who who are simply okay with these changes and who can manage the change and change our world change our change our society change our world I think it's great hey Tina in our last minute your thoughts I'm going to just say ditto what Sandra and Jelani said since I have a minute I think they've covered it all and it's been wonderful this has been thought provoking and inspiring I'm actually going to take some time after this session it's just be quiet it's been a long day we've been in session since 9 a.m. this morning until 5 so thank you for the reminder self-care this is exciting and I am so inspired by you guys it's just oh agreed agreed it's been a great conversation and it is it is something that you have to constantly reflect on you know and so it's been it's been really nice I'm going to do the same thing take a moment because my kids while my kids are distracted thank you all you've been fantastic this needs to be heard it needs to be listened to I'm certainly going to send it to my daughter and my granddaughters and sons and grandsons and support think-tank Hawaii folks yes we're here for you doing great good care great thanks thank you thank you