Ambition. For women, that term tends to be cast in a negative light. There’s a double standard — ambition is often seen as a great attribute in men and as a negative in women. But it shouldn’t be.

To celebrate Women’s History Month and mark International Women’s Day tomorrow, we’re kicking off a special issue dedicated to embracing ambition. For Tory, it’s a particularly personal issue. “In my first interview with The New York Times in 2004,” she recalls, “when the reporter mentioned the word ‘ambitious,’ I commented that the word annoyed me. A friend of mine said, ‘You should never shy away from that word.’ She was right. I realized that I had bought into the stigma that women shouldn’t be ambitious — that it was unattractive. That creates a harmful double standard that we must overcome in order to achieve equality.”

For more on Tory’s thoughts about ambition, read her new essay on LinkedIn.

We at Tory Daily are inspired by smart, passionate women who #EmbraceAmbition and find ways to make their communities stronger. For information on the Tory Burch Foundation, which empowers women entrepreneurs to #EmbraceAmbition, click here.

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