Rent The Runway’s Post

In honor of Women’s History Month #IWD2024, Rent The Runway is gifting $1M in subscriptions to women who have recently experienced something awesome in their careers – a promotion, new job, successful launch, etc. The process is easy: self-nominate by commenting on this post and sharing a professional milestone you've recently achieved or nominate a friend and tell her story. One month ago, I had my third baby. I received more positive affirmation and congratulatory sentiment when I shared my son’s birth than I did when I IPO’ed Rent the Runway in 2021. While I appreciate the love of my community, it was a lot easier to give birth than to become the 30th female founder/CEO to take a company public. But, this all makes sense within the context of our culture. We celebrate women more for personal accomplishments than for professional ones. And, as a result, women often feel more comfortable sharing their personal milestones over their professional ones. Sharing an engagement story is the lifeblood of the group chat whereas sharing a big launch at work might feel anything from strange to showing off. As a little girl, there is almost nothing worse than being called a showoff. For girls, bragging is the quickest way to lose friends and become an object of scorn. It’s in the water: be humble, do great things but wait for someone else to recognize them. I was called a showoff as a kid and it stung, but what I remember most is that this insult was almost only used by girls for other girls. Why this matters is that fast forward to the world of work and promoting women’s accomplishments is critical to our continued workplace advancement. Historical performance is a prerequisite – but as you get more senior in an organization, the more you need a community of people singing your praises to get to the next level. Think of this as a personal net promoter score: the more people willing to promote you loudly, the quicker you’ll rise. I believe that if becoming a C-level executive was based on performance alone, closer to 50% of the C-suite would be female. But because it is also based on how we storytell about ourselves and others, women are but a fraction of our leadership.  The more that public celebration of women’s professional accomplishments becomes normalized, the more opportunities we’ll receive. RTR will also be committing $1M in GMV* to Dress for Success Worldwide to ensure that even more women have the attire and confidence they need to excel professionally. How you can nominate a woman (or yourself!) for one free month of RTR’s 10-item plan: - Tag a deserving woman’s name on this post, mention your or her recent accomplishment, and use the hashtag #RTRShowOff - This offer is for new customers only, who are based in the US Valid thru 3/31 or while supplies last, whichever is sooner. US, 18+, new subscribers only. 1 per person. Subscription auto-renews unless canceled/paused. Terms apply: bit.ly/RTRShowOff *Based on MSRP