W ithin the course of one night this week, I attended two events that, on paper, sound incredibly different: a Forbes -hosted gathering with Hot Smart Rich founder Maggie Sellers Reum , and the RISE Fashion Show, founded by civil rights activist and commercial astronaut Amanda Nguyen, in support of survivors of gender-based violence. But what looks like two wildly different ends of the female experience are actually two sides of the same coin, and reminders of the ways that women and femme-presenting people are still—in 2026—forced to be vigilant about our bodies, our images and our physical safety in work and in life.

Take, for instance, Sellers Reum’s explanation for why she started Hot Smart Rich in the first place: “My whole life, there have been microaggression comments about my appearance ; after someone gets to know me they’re like, ‘Oh you’re so much smarter than you look,’” she told me. “It’s death by a thousand cuts.” Sellers Reum went on to talk about how these microaggressions made her feel like she couldn’t bring her full self to work or to investment conversations, and while she never sought out to become an influencer or creator, the desire to solve her own problem led to the creation of a podcast, a community (now 275,000-women deep) and an investment firm.

Two hours after my on-stage conversation with Sellers Reum, I was sitting on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange listening to RISE’s Nguyen talk about the cost of pursuing goals in a world where, globally, roughly 1 in 3 women experience physical and/or sexual intimate partner or non-partner violence at least once in their life. “Each role model, Olympian, astronaut knows what it costs to achieve your dreams, and gender-based violence is one of the biggest barriers. Rape almost cost me my astronaut dreams,” she said. (Last year, through the Blue Origin commercial spaceflight, Nguyen became the first Vietnamese woman to go to space.)

Specifically, data shows that sexual violence costs survivors $122,461 over the course of their lives (and this data is about a decade old, so it’s not inflation-adjusted), and a population burden of $3.1 trillion in the U.S. alone . Emphasizing the financial impact of assault is part of why Nguyen (and her sponsor, e.l.f. Beauty) hosted the RISE show at the NYSE. But the bigger reason for this annual event is to reclaim the self-assuredness and agency that is stolen during an assault, and to rebuke the idea of victim-blaming.

“After my rape, I was asked, ‘what were you wearing?’ In the fashion context, the question is celebrating you for your creativity, for your taste. In the other context, it’s shaming you for five minutes that happen to you,” Nguyen said Monday night . “The outfits we wear are never an excuse for violence.”

My hope is that the work of Sellers Reum, Nguyen, and every person committed to women’s agency and gender equity will eventually change society to the degree that this far-too-common missive will only grow more outdated with time. Until then, keep up the good fight.

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Exclusive Forbes Analysis: Inside The $118 Billion Fortune Of America’s Richest Woman

Wealth begets wealth. Just ask Alice Walton , who again ranks as the nation’s richest woman on the annual Forbes 400 list —her fourth straight year at the top, and 11th out of the past 12. The only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton (d. 1992), she is $12 billion richer than a year ago on the back of a 10% hike in the retailer’s stock , amid e-commerce and membership growth and the expansion of ultra-fast delivery service. And Walton is only widening the gap between her and America’s second richest woman, Koch, Inc. heiress Julia Koch, whose fortune grew by $3.4 billion over the past year. The full list of America’s top 10 richest women is here.

ICYMI: Stories From The Week

Speaking of women’s bodies, vigilance and sexist standards: Female athletes are speaking out against a new ad featuring the actress Sydney Sweeney scantily clad in various sports gear. Dozens of high-profile female athletes have already spoken out against the ad. Ariane Titmus, an Olympic swimming champion , described the ad as “a kick in the face to every woman who has dedicated her life to perfecting her craft.” The backlash is the latest example of female athletes fighting to be valued for their athletic abilities, and not for how they look.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has “lost count” of how many pregnant women and teenagers in detention centers have suffered miscarriages under its care , a new report claimed Tuesday, after civil rights agencies sounded the alarm on pregnant detainees being denied prenatal care while in custody. The acknowledgement marks the first time DHS has ever admitted it lost count of miscarriages and comes less than a year after the American Civil Liberties Union called on the agency to address its systemic neglect of pregnant women.

On a similar note, and particularly relevant as we head into Climate Week in New York: Extreme heat and air pollution are raising the risk of miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth. Crucially, this is not a problem confined to the tropics. Research funded by Wellcome—which has committed £17 million (about $23 million) to nine projects studying heat and maternal health worldwide— finds the same pattern emerging from India to the United Kingdom.

Jean Smart made history at the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards this week by becoming the first female performer to win an Emmy for every single season of a television series. Smart won outstanding lead actress in a comedy series for her performance as legendary comedian Deborah Vance in Hacks, marking her fifth consecutive win in the category for all five seasons of the series.

A former Anthropic researcher has sounded the alarm about the ways artificial intelligence could harm humanity. “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” wrote Jacob Coxon. Sarah Myers West, the co-executive director of the AI Now Institute , joined ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath for a Forbes Newsroom segment to talk about whether agentic supreme intelligence is possible , the responsibility companies have in developing AI tools, and what politicians need to do to get up to speed on this fast-moving technology.

1. Turn connections into opportunities. Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s Head of Economics, Americas, recently spoke with Forbes careers writer Courtney Connley-Hampton about how to build your network beyond a connect button or cold messages. This starts with understanding that meaningful relationships aren’t built overnight.

2. Stop mass-applying to jobs. It’s 11 p.m. and you’re refreshing your email for the 40th time today. Job application No. 87 went out this morning; application No. 63 was two weeks ago. You start wondering if the problem is your résumé—but it’s not. Read on to learn how to get a leg up and avoid sending another 100 applications.

3. Stop trying to motivate people and become a better leader. It sounds counter-intuitive, but when employees are disengaged, the problem isn’t always that they have forgotten how to care. Sometimes they are dealing with unclear priorities, endless meetings, slow decisions and workloads that keep expanding. Motivation cannot fix work that has become unnecessarily hard.

Despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies during his second term, a recent survey found that 71% of Americans believe that a diverse workforce makes a business more profitable. Support for DEI has increased among which of the following partisan groups?

  1. Democrats
  2. Republicans
  3. Independents
  4. All of the above

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