Sept WoS [Pt.I]: Charlene Liu — “Let’s not limit possibilities”
The SheUp theme for this September is acceptance. Now more than ever we need to recognize the importance of equality, especially with our place as international communities in China. No matter your race, culture, religion, or sexual orientation, it is only with the celebration of diversity and not its division that we will be able to thrive as collaborators, innovators, and leaders.
One of the women leading the charge for inclusivity in China is Charlene Liu, the founder of Ladies Who Tech, ShanghaiPRIDE, and Diversity & Inclusion Consulting. She has also been a member of SheUp for almost two years, and we are a community partner of Ladies Who Tech and ShanghaiPRIDE. As one of the women leading the way towards equality in China, we are proud to have Charlene as our September Woman of the Month feature.
SheUp cofounder Rachel K Zhang got a chance to speak with Charlene about her journey following the phenomenal 2020 Ladies Who Tech convention (that we had a group of SheUp ladies at!). Read Part I of the transcript below, where they talk about her entrepreneurship journey within advocacy in China for women in STEM and the LGBT community.
This transcript has been modified to fit the article length and all mentioned names have been altered.
Rachel K Zhang: Can you introduce yourself a little bit and your background, especially with Ladies Who Tech and ShanghaiPRIDE?
Charlene Liu: Sure! Maybe I should go back a bit and talk about when I arrived in Shanghai, because it all ties up to the history in this story. So the timeline is like this.
I spent nineteen years growing up and studying in Kuala Lumpur, and then four years in Austin, Texas. Then I returned to Malaysia and spent about two years at my first manufacturing job. Then I got a bit bored so I decided to go work in Singapore.
A friend of mine then became a headhunter and he said “there is a job in Shanghai, do you want to go”, and I was like “yeah sure!”. I don’t know any Chinese; so I intended to keep a low-profile. Go to work, go home, don’t do anything else.
But of course that didn’t work out because I like drinking, I like partying, and I started going out every day from Tuesday to Saturday, and back then in Shanghai fifteen years ago there weren’t that many bars and restaurants so everywhere you go it was those same places where you meet almost the same people. Pretty much after that I met friends who happened to be LGBT and allies, and we formed a network. And this network was really just friends getting together, organizing things to do house parties, trips to nearby cities, sports events, or shopping trips; things like that.
So fast forward to 2009, and some these friends were about to leave. And by then we were already the welcoming committee in Shanghai for the LGBT community. And people would ask us where to go, what’s the scene like; all these questions. So some of these friends were leaving and we wanted to throw a big party, one week long, with all the events that we would normally organize into a week. And we were like “let’s just call this ShanghaiPRIDE.” We were very naive back then and didn’t know what it was.
RKZ: Well you knew of the Pride organization, right?
CL: Yeah, Pride! So we know Pride in other countries and we know there isn’t Pride here so we just called it Pride. Of course, that comes with a lot of responsibilities after you call it Pride.
RKZ: Mhm, yeah.
CL: So that’s one of the communities that we started building; it was one year, one time, and that was it. And then 2010 came, a lot of friends came back and said that they felt like there was a need to network more, and that event itself helped people to embrace themselves and to accept themselves, as well as to meet significant others and friends who are supportive. So I thought okay we can do this again, and we did!
Every year we say “okay, this is enough.” But every year we keep doing it, and this is our twelfth. And the community has been very supportive and you can see a big difference from then and now. More businesses are supporting, more allies are coming out to say “I support my friends”, more people asking “oh, why do you want to be a part of this?” and then they respond with “oh, I have a friend, I have a family who is LGBT, and I want to support him, her, or them”. It’s really heartwarming. And in the middle of it I met [my life partner Darick], so for me it’s been a life discovering journey. Discovering myself even, coming out to friends, colleagues, and family.
I just want to give. Whoever is out there, who was like me maybe twenty, thirty years ago and still can’t accept themselves. I want them to know that hey, there are other people who can be a network for you. So that’s that!
And then I think it was the year [Darick and I] were getting married, we were in San Fransisco and bumped into an all women tech conference, and that was how I got the inspiration for Ladies Who Tech.
RKZ: What year was this again?
We’re not doing more, we’re not doing enough. We can do more.”
CL: This was 2015! Yeah, so I was thinking there’s got to be more than a thousand women in tech in Shanghai, right? And I was like, “where are they?!”. And that became my mission to find where they are, and that led to this tech start up. We started in 2016, just random events, two or three. But after I talked to [my current LWT business partner] Jill — and actually Jill was the one who complained to me one day and said, “you know, all these women’s events, we’re not doing more, we’re not doing enough”. And I was like “okay, I have this platform, we can do more”. So that’s how we started building from there.
And so then everyone started coming along, so it’s great!
RKZ: So on the note of being in China, where do you think China is right now in terms of acceptance, equality, and inclusivity? And I know it’s a really broad question, but especially considering the huge movements for racial and gender equality happening in the West, where do you think China is?
CL: I think in general, China is actually very accepting. It’s a big land, and every city, even every district, have different levels of understanding, awareness, and also acceptance. But in general what I see is - having lived abroad in different countries and I’ve been living here for so many years - it is very accepting. And diversity is just about awareness. Once there is awareness, in general they will be like “oh, yeah. It’s cool.” It’s not a big thing.
RKZ: So it’s about normalizing, right?
CL: Exactly. It’s all awareness right now. People see it, they understand it, and they’re like “oh, okay. They’re not that different”. Life goes on.
RKZ: That’s right. Life goes on. That’s a good way of putting it. So from now on then, where do you think it’s moving towards? Where do you think it’s going to go and evolve, in terms of the LGBT community and women in STEM?
CL: So what we want to do is create that level of awareness and visibility. We’re here and we’re not so different from anyone else. That’s for the LGBT community. In terms of gender diversity, our theme is “tech has no gender”, and we want to encourage more women to think that! They can go into STEM related industries, regardless of their gender. Because sometimes when you’re in families they’ll say “oh, you’re a girl, you cannot play with mechanical toys”.
RKZ: Or like the program Scratch.
CL: Yeah! You have to play with dolls. But who says you have to play with dolls?
So we want to encourage families and schools and companies — first families; fathers and mothers — to encourage their daughters to pursue what they’re passionate about. If the daughter is really interested in fixing cars, then wow! She might be an automotive engineer one day. That’s a possibility. And let’s not limit possibilities.
We haven’t worked very much with schools yet, but we definitely want to. We want to encourage schools to have programs that can encourage more girls to join coding classes, or carpentry, or whatever you know? Everything doesn’t have to be limited by gender.
And companies should also be more inclusive. Whether you’re a mom, a single or married woman, sometimes people have the thought that “oh if you’re single or you’re not a mom yet, it means that one day you’re going to be a mom”.
RKZ: And you’re going to go on maternity leave.
CL: And then you’re going to be away for one-year and it’s paid leave. But let’s not have that. Let’s work out ways to figure out how we can be supportive to women as well as men!
In general, again, what word did you use — Normalizing. Like it’s every day life! Let’s not segregate or let’s not compartmentalize. That’s what we want.*
Stay tuned for PART II of Charlene’s interview coming up next week: Journey to Acceptance & A Final Message to SheUp. Hear about how Charlene finds her motivations, her own personal journey to acceptance, and what she considers her proudest moments after fifteen years of working in advocacy.
Catch Charlene’s IGTV live interview where she will be discussing her advocacy and activism journey in greater depth with SheUp Cofounder Thauana Ribeiro de Morais from 7:00 to 7:30 PM on Thursday, Sept 10th on the SheUp Instagram page.**