Photo by Peter Keegan/Keystone/Getty Images
The below was sent to Bonfire participants and alumnae on May 5, 2022.
Dear Bonfire Women,
We are two women who founded a company devoted to the well-being and advancement of women.
We are also two mothers with daughters who will inherit the world our generation has helped to build for them. The ominous news this week about the likely fate of Roe v. Wade to erode a right that women were granted in 1973 leaves us feeling devastated and enraged. As private individuals, we will fight what we perceive as injustice with all the means of influence at our disposal, and using the skills we teach to all of you at Bonfire.
As a company, Bonfire has a different responsibility in this moment. Our members live and work in states across the USA and in countries across the globe. We welcome into our community women from diverse perspectives. This means that among the Bonfire women there may be those who, for their own deeply felt reasons, support the Supreme Court’s impending decision. For all our members the perspectives and frameworks that Bonfire offers are designed precisely for a moment like this, to help you: clarify your purpose, locate your authentic values and personal mattering system, shape your point of view, engage in difficult conversations, and master the art of influence.
Above all, what allows us to be hopeful today is that we are a community of women who want to matter more, who know that this means joining conversations bigger than ourselves, and who will bring open minds and open hearts to the challenges that lie ahead.
For our current members, we will address this issue briefly at the upcoming ART, while keeping the focus on the two incredible presenters coming to help you harness the power of storytelling and expand your capacity for insight. We will also share the date for an upcoming Town Hall, where we will facilitate a conversation about how to navigate the tensions that exist around this topic while seizing the opportunity for you to claim your voice, use your power, and matter more.
Our vision remains: all rise.
-Rachel & Suzanne