Opinion

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By Krysta Jones

A few years ago I had the pleasure of being invited to serve on the Women’s Monument Commission of Virginia, which is leading awareness and fundraising efforts for a first of its kind monument on the Capitol Grounds in Richmond. The monument will honor 12 women who have made an impact in Virginia.

Coincidentally, the monument is scheduled for completion just shy of 2020, when we will celebrate the centennial of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote. There are several initiatives around the country to highlight and share years of research exploring how a movement of a diverse group of women fighting for the right to vote succeeded in securing the right to vote – primarily for white women.

After the Women’s March in January 2017, which galvanized a new energy and birthed a growing crop of activists, I have been even more aware of divergent movements within the women’s movement. While some saw the march as an opportunity to celebrate all women, others were disappointed with the lack of diversity among the organizers and the attendees.

It is no surprise that the “women’s movement” has been historically been run by white females, often older, who have become the stalwarts and spokespeople for what it means to fight for equal pay, reproductive rights, affordable childcare, or other traditional women’s issues.

As I have worked to motivate more women from all backgrounds to take an active interest and leadership role in all fields, and advocate for women’s issues, I have always noticed that many don’t see women like themselves on the front lines. While it is true that there is something special about seeing yourself in those who lead, it’s even more important for the overall good and progress of society to build relationships and learn from those who are different from ourselves.

The Women’s Monument Commission of Virginia seeks to do just that. The Commission selected women to honor with a view toward diversity of races, professional backgrounds, ages, time periods and geography. A major goal was to help us move past traditional stereotypes of what it means to be a woman leader.

When people walk up to the monument and read or hear about each statue, we want them to see some of themselves — as well as people different from themselves — as they reflect on the accomplishments of the women honored and at the same time reflect on what they can aspire to in their own lives.

Some of the women featured in the monument include:

Maggie L. Walker, who was one of the great entrepreneurs of her time and, with the founding of the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, the first woman to charter a bank in the United States.

Cockacoeske, who was a Pamunkey chief and an astute politician and ruled the Pamunkey for 30 years until her death in 1686. As Chief, she signed the Treaty of Middle Plantation on May 29, 1677, restoring important rights to native Virginia tribes and commemorated in an annual ceremony among the chiefs of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey tribes and the Governor of Virginia during Thanksgiving week in November. 

Laura Lu Copenhaver, who as Director of Information of the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation helped expand southwestern Virginia’s agricultural economy by emphasizing cooperative marketing of farm products to improve the standard of living for farm families.

On October 4 at the Woman’s Club of Arlington, I will moderate a conversation with former State Senator (and former Arlington County Board chair) Mary Margaret Whipple about her leadership journey, her service as Commission vice chair, and stories of the women who will be featured with statues as part of the monument.

My hope is that we can encourage additional dialogue in Arlington in advance of the completion of the monument to inspire an appreciation and celebration of the true power of all women.

Krysta Jones is founder and CEO of the Virginia Leadership Institute and former Chair of the Arlington Commission on the Status of Women. In 2014, Krysta was named by Leadership Arlington as a Top 40 Leaders Under 40 awardee.

Progressive Voice is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.com.

By Maggie Davis

With back-to-back record setting hurricanes Harvey and Irma, there is no mistaking it: climate change is real, and it’s here. Our fellow Americans and others living in or visiting the Caribbean and along the Gulf coast now face the massive task of recovering and rebuilding.

In rebuilding, community and governmental leaders should make every effort to “build back better”  to replace the destroyed damaged infrastructure with new materials better equipped to withstand the storms our changing climate is making more intense and more damaging.

The ability for a community to come back better from a disaster — weather related or otherwise — is directly tied to the investments a community makes well before a disaster. In the urgency of rebuilding from an immediate disaster, it is incredibly difficult for a community to identify and implement new design or technology when rebuilding.

Instead, community resilience requires us to be proactive, adaptable and diverse in our investments so we can withstand the next weather-related disaster as well as other adverse events.

Proactive. Arlington leaders have proactively addressed environmental concerns in planning. From its 2013 Clean Energy Plan to lower greenhouse gas emissions to improving road intersections to make transit easier for bicyclists and pedestrians, Arlington is making a concerted effort to curb climate change.

But an even larger part of community resilience is proactively addressing the needs of our residents’ ability to thrive. This includes addressing systemic issues that are more difficult for residents to sustain through a disaster.

Resiliency in the face of an adverse community event — whether it is a hurricane, a terrorist attack like the one we experienced on 9/11, or an economic crisis — often depends on the overall stability in a person’s life as well as access to resources a person has before that event.

If it is difficult for community members to make ends meet during the best of times, it highly likely that a disaster would set them back even farther. This is why we need to proactively address long-term underlying issues such as low and stagnant wages and housing affordability.

Adaptable. In building a more resilient Arlington, we must be willing to adapt to changing times. This includes both general policy and the underlying reality that to invest in the future the county needs to have revenue to invest.

Arlington has struggled with a large commercial vacancy rate for at least the last five years, and in an era where many jobs can be completed with a laptop and a wifi connection many companies are increasing productivity while decreasing the physical space need to operate.

Moving forward, the county should critically examine the current vacancies and continue to pursue flexibility in how certain vacant or nearly-vacant are used. By being more flexible, we may be able to lower the commercial vacancy rate and increase tax revenues to further invest in the community.

Diverse. Arlington needs a diversity of skills, abilities, and resources to grow and thrive in these tumultuous times. In recent years the county has done a good job at diversifying our underlying economy, with the Nestle Corporation moving its headquarters to Rosslyn and the county’s intention to entice Amazon to open its second headquarters here, Arlington is moving toward an economy somewhat less reliant on federal agencies, workers and contractors even while remaining competitive in the federal space given Arlington’s location next to the nation’s capital.

This economic diversity makes the County less susceptible to threats of federal budget cuts and government shutdowns. It also provides a workforce with a greater diversity of skills by drawing in tech entrepreneurs, engineers, marketers, artists and more alongside the many bureaucrats, lawyers, and policy makers who have called Arlington home for years.

In sum, emergencies can come in many forms and without advance warning. Arlington is known and respected for its planning. We are more resilient than many communities for that reason. But waiting for emergencies to create sufficient resiliency is a mistake. That is why it is important to be proactive and adaptable while diversifying our skills, abilities and resources.

Maggie Davis is President of the Arlington Young Democrats. She lives in the Radnor Heights- Ft. Myer neighborhood and works as an emergency management law and policy analyst.