2022 Mass. Conference for Women Gathers in
Person for the First Time Since 2019
WATCH: Video Clip of Viola Davis
BOSTON, Dec. 1, 2022
/PRNewswire/ -- Thousands of women came out in force this week
for the first time since the pandemic to participate in the
Massachusetts Conference for Women, which featured in-person talks
from Viola Davis, Dr.
Kizzmekia Corbett, and Jameela
Jamil.
Video of Viola
Davis at 2022 Massachusetts Conference for Women
Chef and humanitarian José Andrés, vegan advocate and
author Tabitha Brown,
groundbreaking dancer and author Misty
Copeland, and actress and producer Reese Witherspoon addressed the audience
virtually along with novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,
social media transparency advocate Frances Haugen, actress and disability
rights advocate Marlee
Matlin, and five-time New York
Times author Daniel
Pink.
Their comments reflected on the lingering impacts of COVID on
people's experience of disconnection and widespread reports of
burnout in the workplace. They also spoke about the necessity of
women's leadership in these times.
"There is no political idea, no business idea, no artistic idea,
no idea in general whose objective should not be connection – human
connection," Davis said. "If we can't move forward together, we
can't move forward at all." Watch Viola
Davis.
Davis is the first Black actress to win the Triple Crown of
acting, a Tony, Oscar, and Emmy awards, and was recently nominated
for a Grammy for the audio recording of her bestselling memoir,
Finding Me.
Corbett, who led the team that created the Moderna vaccine and
now leads a lab at Harvard University,
acknowledged that, like many women and men, she still sometimes
suffers from Imposter Syndrome.
But she overcomes self-doubt, she says, by asking: "If not me,
who?"
At a time when women have been leaving the workplace in record
numbers, Corbett also urged women who can leave their positions to
do so if they feel they aren't being listened to or are hitting a
glass ceiling.
"It's not our job to fix the structures that keep us from having
the type of career mobility and upward trajectory that we deserve,"
she said. "If it gets to the point where you feel like what you're
asking for requires a systemic change and making that systematic
change is not in your pay grade, leave."
The Massachusetts Conference for Women, the largest conference
for women in the nation, also strengthened its focus on connection
this year – providing an in-person gathering and a virtual event
for the first time in its 18-year history.
The in-person gathering was held at the Boston Convention &
Exhibition Center on Wed., Nov. 30.
The virtual event was held on Thurs., Dec.
1. A free virtual career fair was also held on Tues.,
Nov. 29. More than 16,000 people
registered to participate in the week's events.
José Andrés, chef, humanitarian, and founder of
World Central Kitchen, spoke about the need to plan less and adapt
more. Misty Copeland, the
first Black female principal dancer with the American Ballet
Theater and New York Times
bestselling author, spoke about breaking barriers and her work to
make ballet more accessible to all.
And Reese Witherspoon,
Academy Award-winning actress, Emmy Award-winning producer,
entrepreneur, and New York Times
bestselling author, spoke about her work to make Hollywood a better place for women.
"When I got to Hollywood, I
found it was not place I would want my daughter to work and not a
place I wanted someone else's daughter to work," Witherspoon said.
"I knew I had to do something to create more opportunities for
women to ascend and be in leadership positions. It was a pivot for
me to be more entrepreneurial."
The theme for this year's conference is "Reset. Renew.
Reconnect" – recognizing the extraordinary challenges women have
overcome in recent years and the power of coming together as a
community of women supporting women.
The Massachusetts Conference for Women is presented
by State Street Corporation and generously sponsored
by Hologic, Inc.; Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany; Takeda
Pharmaceuticals; UKG; Target; Cisco; BOSE; Boston
Scientific Corporation; Fidelity
Investments; Indeed; Johnson & Johnson; Liberty
Mutual Insurance; National Grid; Ocean
Spray Cranberries, Inc.; P&G
Gillette; Sanofi; Thermo Fisher Scientific; The TJX
Companies, Inc.; United Airlines; Biogen; Bristol
Myers Squibb; Commonwealth
Financial Network; Converse; Encore Boston
Harbor; New Balance; PTC; Teradyne; Bentley
University Center for Women & Business; Enel North America, Inc.; Foundation
Medicine; IPG Photonics Corporation; JPMorgan Chase &
Co.; Juniper Networks; Merck & Co.,
Inc.; Oracle; Rapid7,
and Vertex Pharmaceuticals; community ; and media
sponsors Harvard Business Review's Women at Work; The
Boston Globe; WBUR; and WCVB-TV Boston.
The Massachusetts Conference for Women is part of the
Conferences for Women, the largest network of women's conferences
in the nation. Its conferences in Pennsylvania, California, Massachusetts, and Texas attract more than 50,000 people a
year.
www.MAConferenceforWomen.org
Twitter: @MassWomen.
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/paconferenceforwomen maconferenceforwomen.
Instagram: @masswomen
LinkedIn: masswomen
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SOURCE Massachusetts Conference for Women