My name is Grace and I'm a senior at Duke University and I came up with the Boss Not Bossy Project as a part of my senior capstone project for the Visual & Media Studies Major. I was inspired to work on this project based on a quote from I read in Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In: "The gender stereotypes introducted in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophecies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don't expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don't." That statement rang very true with me particularly in my studies of math. Nobody ever expected me to be good at math because I was a girl, so I never took it seriously. I always wondered where my math abilities would be today if I'd only believed I could do it.

In her book Sandberg calls for more women in leadership and executive positions to increase visibility on the basic premise that if women were visible in these positions then more young women would believe they're capable of reaching that point as well. I believe this concept applies not only to leaders and executives (the focus of Sandberg's book) but to every male-dominated vocation. At Duke, I'm surrounded by women accomplishing incredible things in male-dominated fields. My hope is that through this photography project, more young women will be inspired to join these fields by seeing someone else already has. Moreover, our media depictions of women rarely show them in many of these roles. Only 10% of girls report being told they could be an engineer, compared to 27% being told they could be an actress. I hope to reach a point where boys and girls alike are told they can be actors, engineers, dancers and scientists. Interacting with the women included in this project has certainly made me think it's possible!

I'd like to thank all of the participants in this project, who are the real heroes: Sydney Speizman, Ilana Weisman, Katie Owen Aumann, Emma Koltun-Baker, Officer Whitney McKoy and Kshipra Hemal. I hope they inspire you as much as they inspired me.

Thanks to my capstone professor, William Seaman, and our capstone assistant Pinar Yoldas for their help and support. I'd also like to give a special thanks to my mother who embodied and instilled the belief that women can do anything. And on that note I'd like to thank all the strong women at Duke and around the world that forge paths for me and for generations of women to come.