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Reflections on Women’s History Month

MBA for Executives student Iris Chau ’23 reflects on Women’s History Month, including how the women of Yale have influenced her journey.

EMBA Women's History Month Group 2022

I am so lucky to have strong women influencing and supporting me in my life. The gamut of female role models ranges from my family to teachers, mentors, managers, and friends. My late mother and grandmother taught me the duality of hard work/fierceness and kindness/compassion. Their daily hard work was impossible to miss;the way they supported our family was legendary.  
 

I also saw kindness and compassion that shaped and transformed many lives. I saw the power in this duality, and this duality is deeply ingrained in me.


As I look back on Women’s History Month, I reflect on my experience now at Yale and how the women who have walked through the halls of our school have shaped our institution and, by extension, shaped each one of us: from Alice Rufie Blake Jordan, our first female student at the Yale Law School, to the countless women in medicine, science, and education who have left their footprints for us to continue their work. Today, programs like Panel of Peers allow us to continue the conversation on how to effect change within ourselves and in our society. In addition, the EMBA program has given me access to 35 of the most amazing women I have ever met. I see duality in the women in the class of ’23: they are kind and compassionate, yet are also talented, driven, and fierce. I am so proud to call them my friends.