Editor’s Note: This is a continuation of our core conversation series, “Extraordinary Women Change the World.” Yesterday, Carmen Sognonvi shared the dangers of prestige to your meaningful work. Today, Abe Cajudo tells us about the glory of being a unicorn – an individual.
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I got the email asking if I could contribute to the Women’s Empowerment Series and replied right away:
“Hi, I’m just checking if this email was meant for me. It’s about women’s empowerment.”
I seriously thought they were joking. My name is Abe Cajudo and the letters in my name are, unfortunately, BFF’s with Auto-Fill. I’ve been butt-dialed and butt-paged since the beginning of time and thought this was a stray butt-email. An accident. Plus, I’m a dude. So when I got a second email telling me that this wasn’t a mistake, that I was intentionally chosen, I replied,
“Then I’m flattered, thanks! Hahaha!”
But what I really meant was that I was terrified.
What the heck do I have to say about women’s empowerment?
I’ve asked myself this question hundreds of times now, reading every incredible post in the series and thinking, man…
WHAT THE HECK DO I HAVE TO SAY ABOUT WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT?
What point-of-view do I have that AIN’T NO ONE ELSE HAD YET? (My inner monologue speaks in slang, despite my best efforts to formalize his English.) I thought long and hard about this for weeks and then all of a sudden it hits me. I know what I’m writing…
Picture in your mind’s eye, a man. A proud, American man that loves football and women and beer and action movies. Did he look anything like me? Odds are he did not. He was tall, conventionally handsome, chiseled and cleft, vanilla-flavored and dreamy like The Bachelor (Seasons 1-16 only). Or a superhero. A prince. Or any rich and powerful man in any history book that you read growing up. Don’t feel bad, I saw the same image for a very long time. THAT is what we have in common. THAT is why my empowerment and women’s empowerment and our journeys are connected.
“Hello ladies. Look at your man. Now back at me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using ladies scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he’s me…” – Opening lines from the Old Spice commercial, one of the most successful viral videos in history.
Early Child Hood Development
I LOVE movies. I love watching them, making them, editing them, talking about them, and studying them as an art form. A medium of expression. The art of moving pictures that move people. My friends and family thought I was crazy when I told them I wanted to be a director.
“HA! There aren’t any Filipino-American** directors Abe!”
“Why don’t you study to become a doctor or an engineer? There’s no money in the arts for people like us.”
But I was good at the art. I saw the world and it’s people in full technicolor, ripe with beautiful stories to be picked out and shared and laughed at and cried upon. I could imagine future civilizations where women who looked like my mom and sister drove space chariots and stood side-by-side with men in control rooms defending the earth from deadly meteors. And then I would turn these dreams into something tangible. A doodle. A short film. A play. Make a video book report or design a poster. I created and told these stories because they were certainly better than the one I was in and the ones I was being fed in school and in the media. And maybe, just maybe, if one of my friends or family with no hope saw what I did, they would change their minds about what’s possible and impossible. For them and for me. That one day my stories might matter.
Manly Thoughts on Motherhood
I owe my creativity (and any success) in large part to my mother, who encouraged and empowered me with second-hand comics, stacks of Zoobooks, and incomplete Lego sets.
“Use your imagination,” she said. “You can do it.”
From the moment we’re born, the first story we’re told is most likely from a mother. “Sshhh, don’t cry little one. It’s going to be okay” they say. Women have been empowering men, Man, with stories from the start. The common saying that behind every successful man is a good woman is absolutely true. As men we believe women all the way until we don’t have to. Until we get away with our first untrue story we tell about you (a rumor from some other dude, hearsay we use to test the waters) and you let us off the hook. You’re right, you’re Light, but you bite your tongue and let us win because you’re better than us, not knowing that by making that choice everything changes. A unicorn dies and the world hangs in imbalance.
How Unicorns Are Born
I read an article once that Oprah didn’t have many role models growing up. She was born in 1954, and at the time the only character on TV that she could identify with was Buckwheat from The Little Rascals. It wasn’t until she was 10 and Diana Ross appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that Oprah said,
“I want to be like THAT when I grow up!”
I remember my first unicorn sighting. His name was Ernie Reyes Jr. and he played Keno, the pizza delivery boy in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. You better BELIEVE I wanted SO BAD to be a pizza delivery boy that hung out with giant talking turtles after seeing that movie!! I wanted to know everything I could about this Ernie, how I could be like him, what baseball cards he owned, and what he had to do to star in what to me was the coolest movie of all time. But of course his name was nowhere to be found in my local Dewey Decimal Drawers. I later found out that he was the little prince in Red Sonja, a badass martial artist/stunt double (he was inside the Donatello suit in the first Ninja Turtles), and the true crown prince of the imaginary kingdom of Patusan in Surf Ninjas. Ernie Reyes Jr. was f*cking REMARKABLE. I could not believe I saw a unicorn. I wanted him to be my best friend and have pizza parties and share step-by-step how he made it in Hollywood so I could too.
Who was your first unicorn?
Was it Amelia Earheart? Oprah? Marie Curie? Ada Lovelace? Jessica Sanchez? The fact that women and minorities, from a very young age, have to reach and spot these remarkable role models between lines of text, in a footnote at the back of a history book, as a 2-second mention during ____ History Month, or inside a giant latex turtle suit is reason enough to change the way we do things. The stories we share and the time/money/attention we give in support of these stories–in business and entertainment–are the responsibility of all of us who call ourselves world-changers.
What do you want the world of tomorrow to look like?
Nearly all of us celebrate the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the global reach of the Internet, but what are we doing in our front-facing businesses to encourage diverse role models and ideas? For every Top 10 Most Successful list on the web there’s a young woman or person of color wondering if that world includes them. If they should even try their hand at entrepreneurship, or aerospace engineering, or public speaking. It’s 2012.
You shape the future with your shares, views, likes, and buys. (Click to tweet – thanks)
You can support guilty pleasures like The Bachelor(ette) that perpetuate the stereotypes so many generations fought to destroy, or you can ATTACK the glass ceiling and be the remarkable women and men of today, the flying unicorns of science fiction tomorrow. The stage is set. You’re the director of this movie. Who will you cast in your videos/stock photos/leading roles? You could go with the easy, available choice. Or you could innovate and take a chance on the next Dorothy Dandridge. She’s a unicorn, but trust me, she’s out there.
About Abe: Abe Cajudo is a director, cross-discipline creative artist, and first-gen entrepreneur. His current fascinations include marketing, directing big ideas through video and design, and orchestrating kick-ass Kickstarter campaigns. You can connect with him as @AHAbraham on Twitter and check out his work at abecajudo.com.
**FUN FACTS! Abe’s American but his roots are in the Philippines. The native word for “women from the Philippines” is pilipinas, and the native word for “Philippines” is Pilipinas, making it a literal and figurative Motherland. Jessica Sanchez from American Idol is half-Filipina and was the runner-up to Season 11 winner Phillip Phillips, who is a pretty great singer but not Filipino from what I can tell.
I absolutely adore this post, Abe. You’ve taken on such an important topic and added yourself, your humor, your point of view…in such an honest and funny way.
It’s so important that we see people that remind us of ourselves out there in the world, making the world a better place. It makes me sad, and sometimes angry, that we don’t see that. Especially, for kids…at young ages they don’t have the cognitive functioning to realize that just because they look a certain way that it doesn’t mean that they can only fit into a narrowly defined role.
It’s important that we all do what we can to support people from all different walks of life, women and men, racial and ethnic minorities, GLBTQ, all different faiths, etc. If we see someone doing something amazing, let’s shine the light in that place.
@Angela Wheeler I absolutely agree that kids should have more role models than what’s been shown in the mainstream. I’m optimistic for the upcoming YouTube generation of kids that have a very different definition of celebrity than most of us had growing up and can find their unicorns and unique gifts faster than ever before in this connection economy. If you look at the top YouTubers, many of them ARE minorities, unknown to the old boys club of Hollywood but carving out a successful futures for themselves nonetheless. Cause and effect.
@Angela Wheeler And thanks so much for inviting me to the series Angela! My once-a-year blog quota has been met, haha.
@pamslim THANK YOU. I future-proofed the hyperlink shoutout to your new website at the end there 😉
@AngelaWheeler Thanks so much for inviting me to the series! You inspire me.
@AHAbraham Awww. What a sweet thing to say. Thanks, Abe!
@dustiarab THANK YOU for your unicorn conservation efforts homegirl. I see you in flight 😉
@BethVeenkamp Thanks for reading and sharing Beth! #unicornpower
Lovely post.Funny thing is Abe all my unicorns are men. As a mother of three young men I actually worry about the empowerment of guys.
Now that the world is finally shifting for us as women, I wonder what the consequences might be for them?
Women have always been aware of their quiet power. Even during those times when they were not free to explore what the possibilities of that power was. Women always knew deep down that they could change the world given the opportunity. They knew they were doing it every day, maybe not in all the ways that they wanted to, but they knew. Women have always known that they mattered, whatever society said.
Now of course we are free to explore and express our gifts in the world however we choose. We no longer have to create and impact in the background and that’s as is should be. But as a mother of three boys I often wonder about the side effects of our liberation on future generations of men. How empowered and valued will boys and men will feel in the future?
Our boys are being trounced at school as girls kick the academic league tables into touch. I get the impression that they feel girls are holding all the cards now. Heck, we seem to hardly need them at all! We can even take control of our reproductive destiny if we choose to, without ever having to enter into a conversation with a man.
I’m not sure that the self-worth of future generations of men is an issue. It just feels like it could be. And like the mothers of daughters two generations ago I don’t have any answers. I’m simply noticing that the coin has two sides.
I’d hate the legacy of our progress as women to be a sense of loss and uselessness among men.
@Bernadette Jiwa Thanks for such a thought-provoking comment Bernadette.A funny thing that I’ve noticed in the media the last few years is the rise of the unkempt slacker, the “Beta male”. TV shows and commercials, print and online ads have shifted from the clean-cut and corporate man of the 50’s-80’s and are now telling the story of the unemployed, munchie-craving gamer-hipster stereotype that gets high and eats Taco Bell at 2am.Is this a dangerous story for young men? Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many guys I know that live that life and have become jaded and hopeless Halo addicts. Some of my closest friends are in that trance. All the while, like you mention, GIRLS are the ones excelling in school, GIRLS are the ones volunteering and taking risks and doing the work and starting businesses online. But how do we fix this? How do we make progress and change the stories being told to our girls AND boys?
@Bernadette Jiwa
Thanks for such a thought-provoking comment Bernadette.
A funny thing that I’ve noticed in the media the last few years is the rise of the unkempt slacker, the “Beta male”. TV shows and commercials, print and online ads have shifted from the clean-cut and corporate man of the 50’s-80’s and are now telling the story of the unemployed, munchie-craving gamer-hipster stereotype that gets high and eats Taco Bell at 2am.
Is this a dangerous story for young men? Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many guys I know that live that life and have become jaded and hopeless Halo addicts. Some of my closest friends are in that trance. All the while, like you mention, GIRLS are the ones excelling in school, GIRLS are the ones volunteering and taking risks and doing the work and starting businesses online. But how do we fix this? How do we make progress and change the stories being told to our girls AND boys?
@AHAbraham I wish I knew.
Abe! Love this post. I like your perspective on the topic, and I laughed when I saw the title. Reading it reminded me of my first unicorn, the first woman who I ever thought, “I want to be like her.” I was 10; the woman was Sandra Day O’Connor. I loved that she was the first woman to be on the Supreme Court (I was a geeky child; still am); I wanted to be something big like that too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, friend!
@jlhenn Thanks Jen!
SD O’C y’all. She’s a great first unicorn, no doubt. And geeky is cool now, didn’t you get the memo?
@AHAbraham Congrats Abe, that so cool.
@seeincolors Thanks so much Lisa. Can’t wait to meet..in October? 🙂
@AHAbraham Yep, I will be doing the graphic recording for the keynotes. Can’t wait to hear your tips, you’ve got skills 😀
@seeincolors Too kind. I have some ideas for collabo’s, don’t you worry 🙂
Whoa, a great post. I think you successfully set the question of women’s empowerment into a wider context and relevant to people outside of the choir. Well done!BTW: my “unicorn” at the age 6 was a vaguely effeminate, cross-dressing male singer named “Julie.” Wonder what that says about me…
@akiramorita Thanks a lot for reading Akira. Maybe your “Julie” was the first time you saw creativity at the intersections? Haha…
@shammydee Thanks for sharing fam!
@emiliewapnick Thanks Em! You set the stage, really enjoyed your post (as usual).
@ahabraham 🙂 I wish you wrote more. I always love reading your stuff.
@emiliewapnick Aw, thanks Em. I don’t know how you writers do this. I think in 140’s…
@AHAbraham Abe! any chance of a quick chat about a project you might be interested in? I’ll shoot you over an email later today 🙂
@robnights Ping away!
@jonknep @CharlieGilkey Thanks for sharing Jon! What’s new with you?
@ahabraham No problemo Abe! I’d love to catch up via email or whatever works best. Let me know what works for you!!
@jonknep I’d like that man. Hear nonstop great things about you from Em. After WDS, for sure. Or will you be there?
@AHAbraham Sadly I won’t be at WDS. I could say the same for you, nothing but great things. After WDS it is : )
@jonknep You know it.
@bernadettejiwa @CharlieGilkey Thanks for sharing the post Bernadette! Means a lot. 🙂
@jlhenn Thanks for sharing. I broke a lot of grammar rules, I know…
@AHAbraham I didn’t notice anything glaring & definitely nothing that detracted from the reading experience. 🙂
@jlhenn Whew. <””sentence fragment.
@akiramorita @CharlieGilkey Thanks for the share Akira. So looking forward to meeting in PDX.
@AHAbraham same here!
@ahabraham congrats on the article at PF! Now off to read
@JanetBrent Thanks yo! Gotta looksee if there’s any comments. Can you tell I don’t blog? Lol.
flip pride, yo! 😀 Proud to be Pinay.
As a Woman of Color, its even harder for me. I’m basically screwed! 🙂 But not really. I know my talents will Propel me, just like Oprah. She’s definitely a Unicorn but I think my FIRST unicorn was Rosa Parks. What quiet leadership!! A stand for introverts alike! So simple yet so radical in her (non)action! I LOVE that.
One of my exes always said that the Philippines is a magical land full of unicorns. I didn’t know what he really meant, but I appreciate the unicorn reference again here.. 😀 Yeah, we’re pretty magical.
@JanetBrent Yes m’am. I totally should’ve used Rosa Parks in the article! What a perfect example of one woman’s ability to DISRUPT an outdated way of thinking and change the fate of a nation with her quiet leadership during a single event in time. Thanks so much for sharing Janet.
“Malakas at Maganda”
(Tagalog for “strong and beautiful”)
@GOK8 And thanks for reading! Really appreciate it Kate.
@AHAbraham glad to have your support #FOCUS100
@thisBrianShea Thanks for sharing B!