International Women’s Day: A Founder’s Reflection on Opportunity and Fairness
A personal reflection on opportunity, fairness, and the quiet mental load many women carry in modern life.
When Dan asked me to write something for International Women’s Day, I paused for a moment.
Not because I do not believe it should be celebrated, but because in many ways I have been fortunate.
I have a husband who respects me. My business partners, Dan and Chris, respect me. In my daily life and work, I rarely feel that there is a ceiling because I am a woman.
Sometimes I almost forget that just one hundred years ago many of the opportunities we take for granted today were not available to women at all.
That realization made me stop and think.
What International Women’s Day Means to Me
From my personal experience, I feel lucky. But I also know not everyone shares the same environment.
Stereotypes still exist. Sometimes they are obvious, sometimes they are subtle, and sometimes they appear in ways that are meant to be kind.
There is also something less visible: the mental load many women carry.
Many women naturally fall into a kind of “guarding mode.” You care about everything around you - family, work, the news, the future, and all the things that could go wrong.
Of course this does not apply to everyone, but many women will recognize this quiet responsibility that sits in the background of daily life.
Building Wellness With That Understanding
As a woman founder working in the wellness technology startup Flowgreens, this is something I think about often.
Our mission is not just about building a device. It is about helping people find moments of calm in a world that constantly asks us to do more.
Whether it is work, family, or the endless stream of information that surrounds us, modern life rarely slows down.
Creating space for even small moments of calm can make a real difference.
Progress Has Been Made, But Work Remains
Statistics remind us that progress is still uneven.
Globally, only about 2–3 percent of venture capital funding goes to all-female founding teams. The number is slowly improving, but it shows there is still work to do.
Earlier in my career, I experienced something that stayed with me.
When I worked in a Taiwanese technology company, I was involved in a project that required travel to meet a large Korean electronics company. Instead of sending me, the company asked my male colleague to go.
The reason was simple: they believed the environment there might not be appropriate for a woman.
They probably meant it as protection.
But protection can sometimes remove opportunity.
When Protection Becomes a Barrier
I am not trying to accuse anyone. The more interesting question is why the environment created that assumption in the first place.
Many women have experienced similar situations. Decisions are sometimes made on their behalf in the name of care or safety.
But if protection is necessary, perhaps we should also think about building environments where that protection is no longer needed.
Women are capable of taking care of themselves.
Equality Is About Opportunity
For me, International Women’s Day is not about proving that women can do everything men can do.
It is about creating a world where people are judged by their abilities rather than assumptions.
It is also about remembering that many women before us fought for rights we now consider normal.
Because of them, some of us today have the privilege of almost forgetting that those barriers once existed.
A Simple Belief in Fairness
In the end, I do not see myself as a women’s rights advocate.
I simply believe in fairness.
Everyone deserves the opportunity to do their work, to grow, and to be judged by their ability rather than assumptions about who they are.
Equality, to me, is not about competing with anyone.
It is simply about making sure the door is open for everyone who is capable of walking through it.
That is what International Women’s Day means to me.