Who taught you what it means to be a woman?

In this next conversation from the Women’s Equality Day Series, Tina Eliana and her guests reflect on the lessons they inherited from the women who raised them, including lessons about compassion, kindness, independence, resilience, excellence, entrepreneurship, self-advocacy, and doing the hard things even when no one else understands.

Some of those lessons were spoken. Many were simply lived.

But what happens when the confidence, strength, and possibility cultivated at home meet a world that does not see or value every woman equally?

This deeply personal, multigenerational conversation explores how race, ethnicity, language, family, culture, and generation shape a woman’s identity, self-worth, leadership, and experience in the workplace. The panel examines what progress has and has not meant for Black women, women of color, and other marginalized groups, including the pressure to work harder, manage stereotypes, and carefully consider how they show up, speak, advocate, and negotiate.

The women also wrestle with a complicated leadership question: Have women genuinely redefined leadership, or have they primarily learned how to succeed within systems and expectations established before they were invited into the room?

As the conversation turns toward women’s health, reproductive expectations, PCOS, endometriosis, fertility, hysterectomy, and workplace dignity, the discussion becomes even more intimate. What happens when society connects womanhood to motherhood, reproductive ability, or particular parts of the female body? And who gets to decide what makes a woman complete?

Featuring perspectives from Allison Wells, Anne Hill, Chris Cushing, Holly Totten, Kris Keppeler, Lesley George, Patricia Freudenberg, Renee Hastings, Sarah Ramsey, and host Tina Eliana.

This episode is about more than how women lead. It is about what women inherit, what they are expected to carry, what they have had to question, and what they are still defining for themselves.

Meet the women of the Women’s Equality Day Series and learn more about Jam Sessions with Tina Eliana at:

https://www.jamsessionswithtinaeliana.com

Follow the podcast, download the episode, and share it with someone who belongs in this conversation.

The Jam Sessions with Tina Eliana Woman's Equality Day series is dedicated to the memory of Dolly Parton. We will always love you.