Mike Wu’s Post

You do NOT need to learn how to be a man! You are already a man, you just need to be in the situations that highlight your characteristics.   You rarely (or never) hear that a girl needs to learn how to be a woman, or a woman needs to learn how to be a mother. They just are.   Why are men told they need to learn to be men or fathers? Because masculinity is for sale! Society convinces us that all men MUST fit into a single mold.   NOT SO! I begin my discussion regarding this topic here: https://lnkd.in/gai3DnVC

DRIVER – SOUL 2025: CROWNING GLORY The tangled relationship between hair and womanhood spans history, informs religion, and in popular culture is associated with sexuality and worth. In turn it has been subject to often strict societal expectations and sometimes coercive control. This strong symbolic significance makes hair a useful conduit for women artists and designers to explore fundamental notions of what it is to be female. First published in MIX Magazine issue 72, Crowning Glory is one of the drivers behind our 2025 design direction SOUL. #ColourHive #MIXMagazine #DesignDirection #DesignTrends #DesignInspiration #ColourInspiration #FutureTrends #TrendForecast #TrendForecasting #CMF #ColourMaterialFinish #2025Trends

#callforpapers #callforabstracts TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: A Virtual Conference Interrogating Black Women’s Natural Hair Submission Deadline: April 19, 2024 This virtual conference gathers papers, presentations, and articles that contribute to a conversation about this fact: For four hundred years, Black natural hair has been the target of erasure efforts, demarginalizing us as African Americans, Afro Latinas, and as women. The various institutional modalities of policing Black women’s (and men’s) hair is a form of racist politics. This conference aims to situate the fact that, despite structural denials to the contrary, our natural hair remains a heretical war zone. Policing of both Black bodies and our natural hair is a form of structural oppression. In her essay “Is Your Hair Still Political?” Audre Lorde explains how an immigration officer’s objections to her dreadlocks nearly cost her a vacation in the British Virgin Islands. Natural hair, whether in the form of braids, afros, dreadlocks, or other natural styles, has always been political. Why is this still the case? Why have we not moved beyond that perennial racist emblem? Accepted panelists will receive a $170 honorarium, with a maximum of two panels, or one panel and one workshop. Workshop leaders will receive honoraria of $250. Panels are 75 minutes long with four presenters; workshops are two hours long, led by a single facilitator. Panelists must attend all three conference days. Be sure to check your calendar before you submit! Only submissions adhering to the guidelines will be reviewed. When reading through the list of panels, note that these two panels and keynotes are filled and no longer accepting applications: *Opening Keynote Address *Closing Keynote Address *WEBINAR: Non-Toxic Black Beauty Products          The following panels have ONE seat left: *Interrogating Black Women’s Natural Hair: Essays, Excerpts, and Articles *Perceptions of Professionalism: Black Hair in the Workplace *More Than a Hairstyle: The Penalization of Black Hair in Schools *How Did We Get Here? Understanding Crown Act Legislation Submit through any of the following: *The CFP List: https://lnkd.in/eGANBH89 *UPenn's CFP List: https://lnkd.in/eZnYtPVn %80%99s-natural-hair *MN Artists: https://lnkd.in/eWHs6Pdz #writingcommunity #naturalhair #writerscommunity #blackwomen #afrolatina #conferencepresentation #conference2024 #virtualconference #submitnow #applynow #conferencelife #applicationsopen #paperpresentation #africanamericans #crownact

💞 Happy International Women’s Day 💞 This year’s theme is “Inspire Inclusion”. This post by maybeboth on IG really resonated with me. It got me thinking about what it would mean to embrace “letting go” rather than “adding more”, to establish inclusivity. As Women, we are often burdened with societal expectations and pressures that dictate how we should act, think, and look. We see this play out all the time in the workplace. And yes, this hits different for Black women. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up; it means relaxing the shackles of societal norms and embracing a more inclusive definition of Womanhood. It means celebrating our differences, supporting one another, and ensuring intentions, actions and outcomes are in alignment. So whether you’re a “Chad”, a “Chelsea” or a “Company”…this is a moment to pause. This is the time to reflect. This is a chance to do better. This International Women’s Day, I encourage you to join me in letting go… 👉🏾 Of bias (conscious and unconscious). 👉🏾 Of judgement (when the unfamiliar or different shows up). 👉🏾 Of expectations (held always for others, but rarely for yourself). 👉🏾 Of limiting thoughts (that hold us back from progress & growth). Let it go. Let it go. 😮💨😮💨😮💨 AND JUST FREE UP YUHSELF 🙌🏾 #HOTperspectives #IWD2024 https://lnkd.in/gGrHiYB3

#callforpapers #callforabstracts TRAUMA, TRESSES, & TRUTH: A Virtual Conference Interrogating Black Women’s Natural Hair This virtual conference gathers papers, presentations, and articles that contribute to a conversation about this fact: For four hundred years, Black natural hair has been the target of erasure efforts, demarginalizing us as African Americans, Afro Latinas, and as women. The various institutional modalities of policing Black women’s (and men’s) hair is a form of racist politics. This conference aims to situate the fact that, despite structural denials to the contrary, our natural hair remains a heretical war zone. Policing of both Black bodies and our natural hair is a form of structural oppression. In her essay “Is Your Hair Still Political?” Audre Lorde explains how an immigration officer’s objections to her dreadlocks nearly cost her a vacation in the British Virgin Islands. Natural hair, whether in the form of braids, afros, dreadlocks, or other natural styles, has always been political. Why is this still the case? Why have we not moved beyond that perennial racist emblem? Accepted panelists will receive a $170 honorarium, with a maximum of two panels, or one panel and one workshop. Workshop leaders will receive honoraria of $250. Panels are 75 minutes long with four presenters; workshops are two hours long, led by a single facilitator. Panelists must attend all three conference days. Be sure to check your calendar before you submit! Only submissions adhering to the guidelines will be reviewed. When reading through the list of panels, note that these two panels and keynotes are filled and no longer accepting applications: *Opening Keynote Address *Closing Keynote Address *WEBINAR: Non-Toxic Black Beauty Products           The following panels have ONE seat left: *Interrogating Black Women’s Natural Hair: Essays, Excerpts, and Articles *Perceptions of Professionalism: Black Hair in the Workplace *More Than a Hairstyle: The Penalization of Black Hair in Schools *How Did We Get Here? Understanding Crown Act Legislation Submit through any of the following: *The CFP List: https://lnkd.in/eGANBH89 *UPenn's CFP List: https://lnkd.in/eZnYtPVn %80%99s-natural-hair *MN Artists: https://lnkd.in/eWHs6Pdz #writingcommunity #naturalhair #writerscommunity #blackwomen #afrolatina #conferencepresentation #conference2024 #virtualconference #submitnow #applynow #conferencelife #applicationsopen #paperpresentation #africanamericans #crownact

During a conversation with a Black man a few weeks ago, in the presence of another Black woman, it happened. Again. I felt the need to defend my hair length. As soon as the exchange ended, I was haunted. Disturbed by the incessant occurrence of having to exculpate my existence, my beauty. Before I could properly process what I was doing and stop myself, I had JUSTIFIED MY HAIR LENGTH. Justified. As if there was something wrong or ugly about it, as if I was less attractive because my hair length was modest, even average, for a Black girl. A Black man had informed me, proudly and perhaps innocently, in front of another woman with longer hair that his hair had been longer than mine “at one point.” We’ve all heard or said The Defenses before. “My hair used to be really long BUT.” “That perm my mom forced me to get broke my hair off, girl.” “I told the hairdresser to just cut my split ends and she cut a few inches off. It’ll grow back.” “I did the big chop.” We’ve all cringed at the “bald head scallywag” jokes on the middle school playground, subconsciously brushed down gelled up baby hairs to ensure ourselves that we had edges, dodge that jab. Why is brushing down gelled up baby hairs even a thing? Doesn’t this act implicitly ingrain the message that natural edges are unruly or unsightly? Continue reading👇🏾: https://lnkd.in/dM5g6fnm #blackwomaninhr #bwhrconference2024 #networking #leadership #empowerment #humanresources #blackexcellence #inclusion #diversity #equality

For the past 248 years, the United States has been governed by 44 white men and one Black man all of whom wore dark suits. This has profoundly—and subliminally—shaped what we think power should look like in this country. Kamala Harris, if elected, could transform our notions of power. As a woman of South Asian and Black heritage, her face alone will stand apart from those that came before her. But in this essay I argue that she can also use her clothing to assert other aspects of her identity. There an argument that clothes aren’t important at a time when democracy is at stake. But image matters mightily in politics. And her sartorial choices could help us reimagine what power looks like and pave the way for other minorities to ascend positions of power. 🥥 Rather than just co-opting the masculine uniform, she could wear garments that read more feminine. This would normalize the notion that a woman can govern. 🥥 What if she occasionally wore garments that reflect her parent’s cultures. What if she showed up in a sari, or in textiles from the Caribbean? This would normalize the notion that America is a land of diversity and a child of immigrants can govern. 🥥 Ultimately, the goal is to arrive at a place where it doesn’t matter at all what she wears. A place where Americans are able to pick their leaders based on their policies without being biased by gender and race. We’re not there yet though. So clothes still have a role to play.

I enjoy learning how conditioning impacts soul expression within different cultures. Here are my observations about the effects of chromophobia on southern African American women’s personal style. White supremacy has refined and polished black women’s expression for so long that some of us are literally afraid of color. We don’t embrace color, see it as a vital component of our identity, or deem it necessary to incorporate it into our outfits regularly because that goes against the safety we’ve created through assimilation. Color doesn’t “protect” us the way neutrals would, and color doesn’t allow us to shrink and blend into spaces that discourage our joy. There are so many rules and contradictions around wearing color as African American women that make it hard to fully appreciate and embrace our true soul expression. For instance: You can’t wear too many neutrals because you’ll look too frumpy or motherly. Yet, if you wear too much color, you’ll be infantilized and/or ridiculed because “you’re too old for that”. You can’t wear red lipstick before a certain age because that’s “too fast, grown, and sexy”. Yet, girls in other cultures can wear various styles of makeup, “inappropriate” or not, from a young age without the same social consequences and criticisms. You can’t dress in ways that reflect your interests if it delineates from the expected or general cultural expression; ie. going through an “emo phase” and wearing all black because that’s “white people stuff”. Yet, if you wear too much color you look tacky and “want to be seen” by attention seeking. The constant policing of how and when color is worn by some southern African American women is what happens when we sacrifice our joy for perceived safety. African American girls and women of ALL ages and regions deserve to make color a safe haven and tool for unlimited freedom of expression without criticism or questioning. To dive more into deconditioning and defining your identity, sign up for my FREE masterclass called “True Style Recovery” where you’ll learn to decondition your mind, define your identity, and express yourself in a way that mirrors the soul. 🧠🪪 Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gtRX6Xvu

Becoming magnetic high value woman to attract the men you desire is LESS about your power on the outside (the way you do your work) and MORE about how you step into your INNER POWER. The more you are in touch with your feminine magnetism and owning it in your body, the more grounded and masculine men you will meet. Check the video below in my Insta profile and see how it lands in your body! https://lnkd.in/gMVqd_3c

Accepting natural hair involves self-love and defying beauty standards for Black women. Embracing our natural hair impacts emotional and identity deeply. When we choose to embrace our natural hair, we are not only making a statement about our appearance but also about our inner selves. It's a journey of self-discovery and acceptance that can have a profound impact on our emotional well-being and how we see ourselves. Dialogue and support are crucial for embracing one's hair identity. Having open conversations with others who are also on this journey can provide a sense of community and understanding. Support from friends, family, and even online communities can make a world of difference in feeling confident and empowered in our natural hair. Embracing natural hair requires self-love in a world with eurocentric beauty standards. In a society that often values certain beauty standards over others, choosing to embrace our natural hair can be a radical act of self-love. It's about challenging the status quo and redefining beauty on our own terms. Check out the latest episode of the H.E.A.L. Her podcast with Dani Bourdeau for more depth into this topic. I hope you love it!