Fighting this issue is not exclusive to the political realm. In 2022, in response to the overturning of Roe v Wade, brands including Estée Lauder offered employee support for abortion access, demonstrating the important role private sector businesses can play in safeguarding women’s well-being.
During the event, Vogue Business head of advisory Anusha Couttigane hosted a panel discussion with guest speakers Sonali Silva, director of youth health advocacy organization Yield Hub, and Eshita Kabra-Davies, CEO and founder of luxury peer-to-peer rental app By Rotation. The conversation began with each speaker sharing a symbolic object that represented their journey. Both Couttigane and Silva discussed the generations of women who came before them, in the shape of their mothers, sisters and other females who have fought to enable them access to better opportunities. Kabra-Davies showcased the desk plaque from her first job as an investment analyst, a profession that she left to launch her own business.
Silva spoke candidly about the experiences that led her to focus on advocating for abortion rights, contraception and better healthcare for women: “I am a survivor of sexual violence myself, but for some reason, I had removed myself from that… but I realised the importance of choice and the opposite of choice is control.” From her background working with the ministry of health in her native Sri Lanka, Silva realised that contraceptive health was being treated as “a budget line”. “When did we even start to think that it was OK to treat women’s bodies as a budget line?” she questioned. A former beauty queen, Silva said she began using her platform to advocate for better contraceptive access, leading to global work with both Yield Hub and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) organization She Decides.
Speaking about her experiences as a female founder, and the importance of creating supportive communities for women, Kabra-Davies highlighted how slim the funding opportunities are. Less than 2% of institutional funding goes to women and less than 0.2% to Asian female founders, Kabra-Davies said. She also described the early days of By Rotation, when a “village” of women supported her to succeed. “We call it the sisterhood of the travelling dress at By Rotation. Very early on, when By Rotation was nothing, there was always one person who brought me into their circle, which had a butterfly effect,” she explained. “So I encourage everyone to bring one person who isn’t normally included into their influential circles, because you never know the impact that will have.”
