Today, we are spending time with Kathleen Donohoe. My mom.

This is a very special Mother’s Day episode – our first on the Hype Women Podcast.

And so, there was no other person I was going to spend today with other than my mom.

Her career is exceptional. It is steeped in gender equity, justice, system change, mission-driven work and community-based connection.

She spent 24 years in the Coast Guard, before her second career of 18 years at the University of Michigan.

As a single mother, she raised my sister and I while moving us every 2-4 years to different cities and states across the country.

It was a lot. Yes, there were hard times. Of course there were good times. But what I’m enjoying most about this phase of our relationship is the ability to look at whole lot of our lives and our choices with breadth, depth and deep empathy.

Motherhood has been the most rewarding and challenging experience of my life. And talking to my mom now about her experience raising me is both eye opening and mind blowing.

Thinking of our mothers as women…humans with their own hopes and dreams and wishes and frustrations and baggage is the most relatable thing I can encourage us to do today.

The reason I do the work I do to fight the fights I have in me to fight is because my mom showed me how to do it.

And while the way in which we approach this work has looked different and been done in very different places, it all matters.

And it got me thinking: if you work inside of a system that isn’t built by – or for – you, and you want to change it, how do you play by rules that are meant to keep you from winning?

Said another way: when do you EVER have the right to break chain of command?

Listen to find out.

Women we love to hype in this episode:

Kathleen Donohoe: LinkedIn, Instagram

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The Hype Women Podcast is produced by Erin Gallagher and Melanie Scroggins.

Original score by Alex Yewon.

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