Forty Over 40

Forty Women to Watch Over 40

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Forty Over 40 Asks: 8Qs for Rebecca Odes, Co-Founder of the internet-based platform Wifey.tv

aWelcome to the Forty Over 40 blog. We frequently spotlight one of our honorees and their thoughts on reinvention, mentorship and momentum…plus a peek into what makes them tick.

This Q & A is with Rebecca Odes, Co-Founder of the internet-based platform Wifey.tv. She also co-founded Gurl.com and is an author of four books about identity for women and girls. Rebecca is innovating her field of work by in her 20s, co-founding Gurl.com, the first major website for teenage girls and young women and in her 30s, turning her attention to another identity transition: becoming a parent. FROM THE HIPS ushered in a new era of guidebooks about pregnancy and parenthood.

1) What was a pivotal moment of reinvention for you?

When I discovered digital media, all the things I was interested in and good at could co-exist in one place instead of pulling me in different directions. A few years after college, I applied to the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. I went there expecting to focus on very personal stories with animation and sound. I ended up developing Gurl.com, which took that personal story idea and brought it to millions of girls around the world.

2) Who has been a valuable mentor or sponsor?

Red Burns, who founded ITP, was a huge supporter and influence. She ran a technology program, but she wasn’t especially interested in technology. She was interested in world-changing ideas that were facilitated by technology. That shift opened up a world of possibility that still inspires my thinking and work. She was also a woman who plowed through boundaries and encouraged others to do the same.

3) What is your biggest goal right now?

To maximize Wifey’s potential to amplify women’s voices and get more work out there into the world.

4) What time do you typically wake up? What do you do every morning?

In my fantasy work life, here’s what I would be doing in the morning:

Wake up at 7:45, go straight to caffeine delivery system and then computer without human contact, get directly to work.  

In my actual life, here’s what I do in the morning:

Wake up at 6:45, frantically try to address kids’ needs, get everyone out the door with a minimum of screaming, deal with inevitable emergencies, get to work. I have a lot of creative energy first thing in the morning and it’s a struggle to not be able to flow that right into my work without interruption. I aspire to be one of those people who gets up at 5 AM to get solid work time in, but I have a tendency to work late when I’m in project mode, so it’s a tough sell.

5)  How did you feel on your 30th birthday? What were you doing at that time? 

I turned 30 riding the cresting wave of Internet 1.0. I was growing the site I’d co-founded as a school project into a multi-media company. I was working on my first book, a dream project for me in so many ways. I woke up that day with the words ‘bad-ass self-actualized m*therf***er” in my head. I was so glad to be done with the part of my life when I didn’t have the confidence to trust myself.

6)  What challenge / achievement are you most proud of?

I think the thing I’m proudest of is the work that has helped people feel less alone through feelings or experiences that had not been well represented in existing media, whether through adolescence, the transition to parenthood, or another aspect of being a woman in our culture. Women get such limited bandwidth and so much of it is embedded in aspirational media whose real goal is to sell things. To find something that connects with you without simultaneously making you feel judged can be a real revelation. Knowing my work made people feel better about themselves is what I feel most proud about.

7)  What song can’t you get out of your head? 

I’m very susceptible to earworms and easily driven insane by them. But the worst one, honestly, is that Kars for Kids jingle. My whole family lunges for the remote when that commercial comes on just to stop me from screaming.

8) What is your secret indulgence?

I try to avoid an indulgence mindset in general. I don’t feel guilty about letting myself enjoy things. I think this may be the result of my upbringing as much as a directly feminist stance (though I was definitely raised in a feminist household). But it is a particular problem for women, this idea that we need to hide the things that give us pleasure. Is it because we feel we don’t deserve them or because they’re somehow considered unseemly? Either way it’s counterproductive. Part of the path from object to subject is women owning a relationship to pleasure and desire in an out and proud way.

Check out Rebecca Odes’s full 40 Over 40 profile here!

Whitney Johnson

Whitney Johnson

Whitney is the author of the acclaimed Dare, Dream, Do: Remarkable Things Happen When You Dare to Dream. She has been named on numerous Smart Thinkers and People to Follow lists by major media such as Inc. Magazine, Business Insider and Huffington Post and is quoted in Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fast Company, Forbes and more.
Whitney Johnson