Richmond’s High-Achieving Women Spearhead Nation’s First ‘Iron Butterfly’ Roundtables

RICHMOND, VA--Last night a group of some 25 to 30 executive and entrepreneurial women gathered at a private home in suburban Richmond to discuss “feminism in the workplace,” reports Dougie Scudder of Scudder Associates, LLC, a C-Level powerhouse who hosted the first two gatherings in her own home. This "Iron Butterfly” movement is based on the growing popularity of author Birute Regine’s new book, Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and The World.

"These were not lightweight events,” Ms. Scudder relates. "Last night for example we discussed how women can be powerful leaders and still retain the special qualities women bring to business…. such as allowing their vulnerability to show by saying “Joe, I need your help” rather than the masculine top-down model:  “Joe, I need you to do xyz.”

In the previous gathering, Ms. Scudder also reports, one attendee, in a moving moment, told the group what it cost her to be as successful as she is (“two husbands and no time to have children") which she believes points up why Iron Butterflies helping each other become Iron Butterfly- style leaders and not clones of male leaders is so critically important and timely:

Another women said afterwards:  “When I am invited to women-only events I usually shudder because I know I am going to be asked to buy a bunch of Tupperware or something like that.  This was a most welcome surprise, a meaningful, candid exchange where women, peer-to-peer, can come to inspire and help each other be even more successful as leaders in business and all areas—which is benefit to individuals, companies, to Richmond and hopefully, as this spreads, a benefit to the country as a whole.  This was a meaningful evening and I will come again and again and bring other Iron Butterflies.  There are other book clubs and support groups in and around Richmond, but nothing like this!"

More About the Book

Ms. Regine, Iron Butterfly author, interviewed 60 successful women from all walks of life and throughout the world including businesswomen, CEOs, a Congresswoman, a governor, an ex-prime minister, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, a winemaker, artists, doctors, and nurses. These women discuss their struggles, which, women at the lower end of the job spectrum will find, are striking in their similarity to their own.

Are You an Iron Butterfly?

What we need to know to change from within, find power and collectively  transform the world...

Wings. All of us come into this world with the potential to grow them. Some let prejudice, discrimination, manipulation, or the expectation of others thwart their development. But some draw on an iron inner strength to unfold their potential and transform themselves—and the world.

In Iron Butterflies: Women Transforming Themselves and the World (Prometheus Books, April 2010), author Dr. Birute Regine tells the stories of a diverse group of women whose accomplishments illustrate overarching themes so critical to women’s lives and to our times. They come from an astonishing range of experience and great diversity of backgrounds from countries around the world; in business, politics, science, arts, religion. Their lives validate women’s experience and embolden them to follow the examples of women who have transformed themselves and their world.

Through their personal stories of individual and global achievement, women will see how they, too, can unfold their wings and join the kaleidoscope of Iron Butterflies that are gathering and transforming our world; and men will learn that everyone wins if males encourage the women they love to join the flight.