Empowering Diversity in Women

By Abbey Mays & Heather Waldo

Overview

This project is a deep dive into ways to empower women, diversify the fields that women go into for work, and hope to bring more awareness to women and their options in life and in the outdoor community.

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Our target audience

• Young women ages 18-25
• What troubles them: Confusion over stereotypes, societal standards, low self esteem, pressures from family and friends
• What makes them feel happy: Learning more about themselves, making lasting friendships and trying new activities
• Their motivations: An internal drive for success, curiosity, wanting a successful future and wanting to understand womanhood

Opportunity

• Having a program using social media is becoming very popular, especially for young women which is our target audience.
• By using social media as our primary outlet for our audience, we are able to attract women from all parts of the world and gain a large following.
• Young women are also looking for new career paths, exploring the meaning of life and their physical and mental abilities, often times looking to social media for inspiration.
• All of these factors present a lot of room for growth within our program.

Problem

• Young women all over the world are confused by societal standards, unsure of their career paths and abilities in life.
• This problem exists due to outdated standards as well as self esteem issues within women.
• These issues are seen everyday and we feel we are knowledgeable enough to help make a difference.
• This problem has been attempted to be addressed by various people but it needs more unity in order to be successful.

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Solution:

A social media program &

Clothing line

Posts from influential and inspiring women to promote autonomy, education on advanced adventure topics and ambitiousness in today’s young women.

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Social media program

On Instagram, Twitter and Facebook

Free activity

What we would do:

• Posts about women in different career fields
• Posts about women doing different activities (example: outdoor activities)
• Videos/going live on social media featuring women and sharing their life experiences
• Videos addressing different topics like confidence, finding one’s self, etc.

Conferences and Workshops

Paid activity

• Conferences would feature women from different career paths and interests and talk about their experiences and challenges.
• These could take place in person, online, and/or a hybrid so that people from all over the world would be able to visit. This conference would be an opportunity to learn more about how to empower women around you and will have female leaders talk about their careers.
• Workshops on how to find what interests a person the most and tutorials about various topics like outdoor activities.
• These workshops would have various information about different high adventure activities. The main focus would be in line with the clothing offered at the store, but may also include empowering others in the outdoors and information on powerful women in the field.

Clothing Line

These clothes will be specifically designed for women completing various outdoor activities, such as rock climbing, hiking, and ultra/trail running. This would be useful because a lot of clothing companies will only offer unisex options, which do not fit to the female body as well. Through creating better fitting clothes designed for the specific outdoor adventure, women of any size/shape will be able to complete the activity and feel confident while doing it.

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Specific clothes sold

• Athletic tee shirts/hats that can be worn by anyone to support the brand
• Climbing pants and shirts designed to fit a female body
• Trail running clothing that includes tank tops, leggings, and other accessories made intentionally for all sizes and to adjust with the wear and tear of ultrarunning
• Hiking leggings that are made for different levels of weather for all size.

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Traction

• Implementing our program on social media is the best way to reach our target audience of young women ages 18-25.
• Social media is a big part of many young women’s lives, which can give them false standards of what women should look like, act like, and potential jobs that a woman should do. By getting on these social medias and posting content that would break down those barriers this could help break down certain stigmas.
• We will initially attract followers and/or customers with the free social media content, then they can engage in purchasing items from the clothing brand, attending workshops, etc.
• Through offering a lot of free content to followers it will help them become invested in our goals, which will make them more likely to buy clothes, attend a workshop, or share the information with a friend.
• There is room for growth by pairing a social media program and a clothing line. This helps us combine both free and cost content.

Customer & Market

Our Customer:

• Young women seeking clarity in life and exploring their life and career options
• Reached via social media
• Most of the content will be free with the exception of attending Q&A sessions, workshops and purchasing products from the clothing line
• Followers and/or customers will be willing to pay for our service because the free online content will make them want more information

Market:

• As of July 2019, there were 10.57 million women ages 20-24 in the United States Link to source here
• This statistic only accounts for the U.S., so there is an even wider global young women audience as well.

Us vs Competition

How we are different than our competition:

• We will offer a variety of services that are either free or cost a fee.
• Many other campaigns or programs like ours do not partner with a clothing brand
• Not many programs like this locally
• Our program is also unique to our personal experiences and shared knowledge

Competition:

• “She Moves Mountains”- A company that sells outdoor clothing and teaches women how to climb through workshops
• “The Just Girl Project Official” on Instagram- posts inspirational posts for women ranging from stereotypes, advice and information.
• “GRRRL Clothing”- A company that supplies women with workout gear regardless of shape or body size. They also offer workshops for women in order to empower them that is geared more towards the powerlifting and bodybuilding sport.

Business Model

• The sales for our clothing line, workshops and other activities, will help us be able to pay for our expenses and sustain the life of this business while still making a profit.
• We’re going to start off with free social media content, then as we gain following, we will start to advertise for the clothing line, workshops and so on.
• This is how we will gage our success.
• We will gain followers and/or customers by providing authentic and unique content about our mission.

Use of funds

• The funds that are made from the clothing line and conferences/workshops will be used to improve the company and the experiences of the clients as well. Additional funding can be used for other non-profit organizations that are supporting a similar cause and potentially teaming up with that organization for a conference to bring in more people and share our message.
• We are qualified for this program due to our shared experiences and knowledge about this subject.
• We can accomplish our goal of empowering and informing women by making strategic business implementation choices.

Our Team

Heather Waldo

Communication Studies major with a concentration in Public Relations at Longwood University

Communication Studies Departmental Intern 2020-2021

Abbey Mays

Therapeutic Recreation major with a minor in Outdoor Education

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References

Belle, Molly. “Photo by Molly Belle on Unsplash.” Beautiful Free Images & Pictures, 11 Mar. 2016, unsplash.com/photos/a-xEUwYSPLw.

Bergeron, Ryan. “Plus-Size Runner Leads the Way for Overweight Athletes.” CNN, Cable News Network, 5 May 2017, www.cnn.com/2017/05/05/health/turning-points-mirna-valerio/index.html.

Chakraborty, Rahul. “Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash.” Beautiful Free Images & Pictures, 26 Nov. 2017, unsplash.com/photos/xsGxhtAsfSA.

Colleen StinchcombeColleen Stinchcombe is a freelance journalist covering health, et al. “Outdoors For All: Plus-Size Climbers Challenge Stereotypes.” REI Co-Op Journal, 22 May 2020, www.rei.com/blog/climb/outdoors-for-all-plus-size-climbers-challenge-stereotypes.

Department, Published by Statista Research, and Jan 20. “U.S. Population by Age and Gender 2019.” Statista, 20 Jan. 2021, www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/.

“GRRRL CLOTHING: It's Time to Change The Game.” GRRRL, 3 Apr. 2021, www.grrrl.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw3duCBhCAARIsAJeFyPVJ3ZODkHfb9hZpQ75a1XyuPhcA8o_fJF40aNnFuvXH8JpkOyX18cAaAm4pEALw_wcB.

“San Juan Islands Women's Kayaking Weekend: REI Adventures.” REI, www.rei.com/adventures/trips/weekend/san-juan-islands-womens-trip.html.

“The Just Girl Project.” Just Girl Project, thejustgirlproject.com/.