Like a typhoon caused by a butterfly flapping its wings, our actions—simple as may be—can cause a ripple effect that is hard to decipher in advance. Such was the case with Meena Harris’ initiative. The Harvard Law graduate had launched the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign with a t-shirt. The term “phenomenal woman”—printed boldly on the gray t-shirt—was derived from Maya Angelou‘s 1995 poem that rejected narrow societal expectations of women.
The idea was simple: sell “Phenomenal Woman” t-shirts on International Women’s Day, back in 2017, and donate the profit to women’s organizations like The United State of Women, a national organization dedicated to convening, connecting, and amplifying voices in the fight for full gender equity. Harris, then a San Francisco-based tech adviser and entrepreneur, expected to sell some 500 t-shirts, but ended up selling some 2,500 shirt on her very first day.
Now a full-blown movement for women’s rights (with 555k followers on Instagram alone), Harris’ t-shirts are proof that small steps can have a great impact. Her shirts are often sported by celebrities and prominent social figures, but also everyday women calling attention to the causes that matter to them most.
“It has really grown into what some call a movement, which makes me uncomfortable because I never really set out to do that,” admitted Harris, now the CEO of the philanthropic lifestyle brand, Phenomenal, in an interview with Complex. “I was thinking about how we continue to use our platform as a way to engage mass audiences around really critical issues, especially those that affect underrepresented communities.”
Three years later, and Phenomenal isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Their range of t-shirts now includes “Phenomenally Indigenous,” “Phenomenally Black,” and “Phenomenally Asian”, as the brand continues to partner with organizations, promoting discussion about major issues like voting, immigration, and female empowerment.
“I look at it as sort of this gateway drug,” explains Harris, “like an engagement ladder where one day I have you wearing the T-shirt, and then hopefully in a year, maybe you are knocking on doors or you’re doing more. I saw how people were engaging with it and in such a small but concrete way, and how it was really speaking to them. I started thinking about how to keep using that as a tool to raise awareness around different issues.”
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