Feminist Business School with Jennifer Armbrust

Strong Feelings

Can business be a site for radical creativity and social change? Join us as we go back to school with feminist business consultant Jennifer Armbrust.

Jennifer is the founder and director of Sister, a consulting firm that advises companies on bringing feminist principles into business practices. She’s also the creator of Feminist Business School, an online course, and the author of Proposals for the Feminine Economy. We talk to her about what it means to bring feminism into business, what it might look like to build more equitable economic systems, and why she thinks all entrepreneurs should read some Audre Lorde.

Listen to your body’s messages as guidance, instead of seeing your body as an inconvenience to work—which is what capitalism says. Capitalism says, “you could work so much more if you didn’t get sick or pregnant or have to eat or go to sleep!”... So, that’s kind of the first place I work. How do we bring your body back into your business and let your body have some votes on what happens throughout the day?
—Jennifer Armbrust, founder of Sister and creator of Feminist Business School

We chat about:

• Why Jennifer let go of the pursuit for “ideological purity,” and embraced bringing her feminist backpack into the weeds of capitalism instead
• How our culture of overwork and constant pressure to produce fails us
• Why listening to your body, not just your to-do list, is a feminist act
• Why fear is what keeps people—and companies—stuck
• The importance of “tinkering”—using small shifts to create change
• The limitations of “conscious capitalism” in creating equitable futures

Links:

• Sister
• Feminist Business School
• Proposals for the Feminine Economy
• Sister on Instagram

Plus:

• Sara and Katel talk about their own successes (and...not-so-successes) bringing their feminist practices into their work
• Why having a woman in charge doesn’t make a business feminist
• The problem with individualistic “go get yours” women’s empowerment messages
• White feminism in history: how Southern white women’s slaveholding helped secure their economic future

Photo credit: Aubree Bernier-Clarke