Miki Agrawal: On The Power of Disruption
For The Curious,
A while back, I was in a recorded conversation with the renowned therapist Esther Perel about the state of men and women.
At the time, Harvey Weinstein had been taken down by charges of sexual abuse. And the #MeToo movement was beginning to force a lot of other powerful men out of their jobs. But Esther told me that ultimately it would be men who’d change other men’s behavior.
I told her I just couldn’t see it. I remembered a time when a woman was jogging down the street past six guys in a cluster and one of them made a vulgar comment about her. She didn’t hear it. It couldn’t have bothered her. She ran by as if it hadn’t occurred. But my point was that I’d never been in a situation like that where one of the men in the circle had stepped up and said: Not cool – don’t do that.
Esther said the change was upon us. When the talk was over, one of the guys handling the audio came over to me and said he couldn’t understand where Esther was coming from. He’d never seen a man step up and say Don’t do that in that situation, either.
Well, Esther was right. And I was dead wrong. The Gillette ad: The Best A Man Can Get, showing men stepping up when boys were being bullied and women were being treated as sexual objects, is a clear symbol that society is moving in a new and better direction.
Yes, there were men who were outraged by the commercial. Yes, there were videos on the Internet of men throwing their Gillette razors in the garbage. But there hasn’t been any change in Gillette’s sales since that commercial on toxic masculinity appeared. And I believe that commercial was a tipping point. The world just ain’t going back.
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It’s more than a manifesto for the modern woman. Because it enables men to understand how women on the cutting edge are thinking.”
This week’s conversation is an indication of just how fast things are about to change through Miki Agrawal’s point of view. Miki is an entrepreneur who has the power to look at behavior we see as commonplace and come up with ideas to change it. She has created $150 million companies that produce period-proof underwear and a new way to clean ourselves over the toilet.
On this week’s episode of Big Questions, she talks about the release of her new book: Disrupt-Her. It’s more than a manifesto for the modern woman. Because it enables men to understand how women on the cutting edge are thinking.
Among other changes, don’t be surprised if you find yourself using a different type of toilet paper next week.
Cheers,
Cal