Indy Hall has ‘a binder full of women:’ resumes and cover letters of female professionals

Over at Old City coworking space Indy Hall, ask for a binder full of a women and you shall receive. And it’s all thanks to Hila Ratzabi, an Indy Haller who’s a freelance editor and poet.

We asked Ratzabi, who lives in West Philly, about the binder and her answer was so eloquent and clear that we’re printing her whole response.

She writes:

What ended up proliferating as a hilarious meme also got me thinking about the question Romney originally evaded with his silly answer. What is anyone doing about the fact that women still don’t get paid as much as men? And that women are still underrepresented in many important fields? So I began to imagine the Binder Full of Women as a positive and empowering idea, one that was still funny and tongue-in-cheek, but serious at the same time.

I liked the idea of creating a physical binder that couldn’t get linked around the Internet. A physical object one could peruse with their hands. I liked the idea of women sitting down and writing about themselves, thinking about how to promote themselves.

The instructions were simply to fit whatever you can onto an 8 1/2 x 11 page. Write about what you do, both for work and for fun. Let folks know how to contact you, what your website is, etc. The idea was that if someone was looking to hire someone for any kind of gig, they might look to this binder to sort through the talented women here at Indy Hall first.

Now, I actually don’t know of any specific jobs or referrals that came out of this just yet, and I believe it’s time for me to remind Indy Hallers that we need more profiles in the binder! But I do know that the women who participated so far were really excited about it. I myself had fun putting together a very low-tech assemblage of my skills, talents, and interests on a single piece of paper. If anything, I think it’s an opportunity for women to remind themselves to put themselves out there for work and networking, because unfortunately, this is still something that needs to be actively done in today’s world.

Some shots from inside the binder full of women, which has about ten entries, below. And to the other coworking spots out there: if you get inspired, show us yours.