Today I took my son to see the movie Wonder Woman.  When I first suggested it, he told me that he didn’t really want to see a “girl movie.”  Given that I think my job as the mother of a little boy ‎is, in part, to make sure he is an ardent feminist, I made it very clear that this was the absolutely WRONG answer.  Needless to say, when movie time rolled around, he was super-excited to see it!

Wonder Woman is a great movie.  I think the DC Comics movies have suffered behind the Marvel Comics movies for being a little too serious, but this movie added some much-needed humor.  And, most importantly, its feminist message is VERY topical.  What I loved most is Wonder Woman’s clear motivation of doing what’s right.  She is driven solely by her moral compass, disregarding any utilitarian / ends-justify-the-means calculus.  At one point, she chastises the English generals that they should be ashamed (“ASHAMED!”) of themselves, sitting in their offices and letting so many die without fighting on the fronts and sacrificing themselves with their men, and lets herself be dragged out of the room, finger still pointed, by (a very hot) Chris Pine.

I see this in myself in the workplace (absent Chris Pine, of course).  Every decision I make is motivated by intellectual honesty.  I am in finance, which has gotten a very bad rap (the Wall Street vs. Main Street debate being the most painful of all because it casts Wall Street as the bad guy, which is not necessarily the case).  I truly want to do what I think is right, not just because it’s nice to be able to sleep with myself at night, but because after 17 years, I’m positive that nice guys and gals do finish first.  Call it what you want, but when all’s said and done, karma’s a bitch.

I think most people get there in the end, but if I had to generalize, I think women feel it in their gut in a way that is different than men.  Sometimes that can be hard for me … I find myself having to explain my rationale for something that I think is so clearly “right,” which (much like Wonder Woman) initially leads me to label someone as “bad” if they don’t quickly get what I’m saying.  Morality is sometimes hard to explain without value judgments that can alienate those who we are trying to inspire.  But doing so is an important component of success … just like Wonder Woman could not have saved the world if Steve had not continued to believe.  I have a male co-worker who I bounce my knee-jerk reactions off of to make sure others will understand where I’m coming from, and this combination … his respect for my gut response and my respect for his guidance on how to communicate effectively … is a potent combination that I think is at the heart of building equal male/female representation in the workplace.

And in appreciation of the running sartorial joke in Wonder Woman, I thought I’d also wear something that would be considered quite edgy in WWII England … in this case, an Esteban Cortazar dress I got from MatchesFashion (http://www.matchesfashion.com), which I paired with Aquazarra sandals I got from Net-a-Porter (http://www.net-a-porter.com).  Now if I could just get myself one of those golden lassos …