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January 2, 2025 41 mins

Fact: Women account for over 40% of the fan bases of the NFL, MLB, and NHL. 

Fact: Women comprise 47.7% of viewership of Super Bowl 58. 

Fact: Media coverage of women's sports has nearly tripled in the last five years. 

So why isn't a female voicing this? "NCAA Division I Women's Volleyball Championship. Attendance is encouraged. Passion is mandatory. Buy your tickets today at ncaa.com." 

And why can't a female voice this? "It's more than the Super Bowl. It's the Super Bowl in Las Vegas." 

When it comes to advertising sports, movies, and brands that women spend time and money supporting, women want to see and hear women promoting them. 

So how can we let the higher-ups know what we really want? Well, when there's no door to kick in, we have to build one. It's time to start building doors for women to walk through. 

Because after all, kicking them in just ruins our shoes. 😉

@buildingdoorsvo

https://buildingdoorsvo.com

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's my honor to welcome the founder of Building Doors, which is an advocacy organizationfor women in voiceover and possibly more.
We'll talk about that a little bit more with voice actor, activist, and speaker.
My pleasure to welcome Christy Harst.
Christy, hey, we've, we've met off camera 10 minutes ago.

(00:23):
We've never like met in person.
We were introduced by a dear friend, Skye Moffett.
And I've known about you for quite a while because so many of my voiceover friends andcolleagues have been sort of swept up in the building doors movement.
For those that have no idea what in the hell we're talking about, explain to me and ouraudience what building doors is.

(00:46):
Sure.
Building Doors is a movement, a
community that is bound together by a mission of creating more equal opportunities forwomen in voiceover specifically in male centric genres.
This has been, I don't know when you founded it, but it kind of came on my radar.

(01:08):
want to say about a year and a half, maybe two years ago.
Is that accurate?
No, but you love it.
That's what you think.
Really?
That's amazing.
It started March 1st of 2024.
We've been around for 10 months.
Oh, wow.
See, this is why in my family we call it Paulsheimers, Christy.
Cause if I don't like time ever since the pandemic time is an ordean to me, right?

(01:33):
What I, this is the part that I really want to find out about.
You do promo yourself.
You do a lot of commercial yourself.
What was, if there was the straw that broke the camel's back, what was that moment whereyou said, God damn it, something needs to be done here.
So I have been doing voiceover for about 20 years.

(01:55):
10 years was in addition to a full-time job.
And during those years, I call them the BC years before children.
I did a lot of on-camera in addition to a sprinkling of voiceover work.
And then the last 10 years have been only VO.
Like I rarely do on-camera work, but I do all VO.

(02:18):
Specifically the last five years, I've been focused on doing sports promo.
I'm a former college athlete.
I'm a former head varsity coach.
My husband is also a former college athlete and we, our kids are terribly involved insports.
So sports are just kind of like part of our lives, right?
And I thought, what a great way to take what I love, which is voiceover, specificallypromo and combine it with sports.

(02:44):
And not just any sports, but male.
dominated sports like the NFL, UFC, PGA.
And so for the past five years, I've followed all the rules to make that happen.
I have done all of the things that you're supposed to do in terms of marketing, in termsof creating a unique content, marketing content, in terms of having a sports promo demo,

(03:10):
all the coaching, all the workshops, all that stuff.
And nothing was happening.
I'm like, well, I'm doing everything that everyone's telling me to do.
Why isn't it happening?
And full disclosure, I am not represented by any of the big agents, where a lot of theseopportunities are funneled through.
And so I was doing a workshop with a prominent promo LA agent, a female.

(03:35):
And I said to her, this is what I've been doing.
What's going on?
Like, do I have a chance?
And she goes, yeah, not so much.
And she went on to explain.
That it isn't because there aren't a bunch of women trying to create more opportunitiesfor women in voiceover in these genres.
It's because when these opportunities climb up the decision making left, it gets to apoint where it hits a middle-aged white man and he says, Nope, put in a man.

(04:05):
And my whole body really deflated and everyone in the zoom room could see it.
And I started getting messages in the chat and people were saying, Christy don't give up,Christy don't give up, blah, blah.
I woke up the next day and I thought to myself, so what you're telling me is, what's thebiggest thing holding me back is likely my gender.

(04:31):
I didn't like them.
And so I got angry and I know that's a dangerous word to use as a woman, but I did getangry and I got frustrated and I got disappointed.
And I found myself looking at two choices.
One, give it up.
Just give it up.
What's the point?
You've wasted five years of your life chasing this dream, investing money, investing time,investing training, trying to do all this out of the box marketing and it's not working.

(04:56):
So just give it up because it's not there for you.
Or if there's no door for me to knock on, if there's no door for me to kick in, in fact,there's no door at all, I could be the door.
And I could partner with a bunch of women around the world to build it.
And so that was something like February 9th or 10th of 2024.

(05:20):
And I remember there was a moment sitting on my couch where I said to myself, if you'regoing to do it, you better do it now.
And by now I mean the second, because you have no time to waste.
And I said, okay.
And I got up off the couch.
came to this computer and I picked up my phone and I called women that I already knew.
I called someone in Australia.
I called somebody in Atlanta.

(05:40):
called, you I just started calling these women that I knew.
And then when I ran out of women that I knew personally, I just started doing research onthe internet and calling these women.
And I will say that the women who decided, the 14 women who decided to partner with me inthe month of March are probably some of the bravest women because
They just signed on and said, yeah, I'm going to put my voice out there with you in this.

(06:05):
And I didn't know it was going to happen.
I didn't know.
I was like, yeah, we'll do it, Munt.
Boop boop, done.
But then it caught on.
And now 10 months later, here we are.
And I want to talk about this obvious bias.
Where do you think that bias comes from?

(06:26):
it?
Is Is it flat-out misogyny?
Is it a blind spot?
How do you characterize it?
Just yesterday, I posted on our LinkedIn and on our Instagram pages, are at buildingdoors.
Please follow.
There was a study done of 2,000 women over a 10-year period.

(06:47):
And what they discovered was that women are four times more likely to die if they
don't express their negative experiences or feelings and that we are currently in asociety where women are discouraged from ever saying no.
We are only encouraged to say yes.

(07:08):
Why?
Because men and women for centuries have roles and we see each other within those roles.
And so when you try to take women out of those roles, people don't like it.
because they have a hard time seeing you in that way.

(07:28):
We don't like it when women say no.
So when women express themselves authentically, statistically data shows it's not good forthem, their mental health and their physical health.
When they express themselves or when they don't?
When they express themselves in saying, I don't like this.
No, I don't want to be a part of this.

(07:50):
No, I'm not going to do this for you.
Society doesn't like that.
We like it when people stay within their roles and these roles were put forth centuriesand centuries ago.
And it harkens back to the story that I just shared with you from that prominent promo LAagent.
It's not for a lack of women trying to create opportunities for other women to be seen andheard in roles that they aren't traditionally.

(08:16):
It happens when it gets to a certain point of decision-making and that decision-makinghappens by a man and that man is not ready to welcome
a woman in a role that they are not typically seen.
And I also had a conversation with an MLB reporter recently, and this MLB reporter is awoman.

(08:36):
And she said to me, Christy, it's almost as if it's a copy and paste situation in headoffices around the country and MLB offices.
It's an Ivy League white man, copy paste.
Ivy League white man, copy paste.
And then we take that and we put that in all the senior positions.
of every major league baseball team.
That's who's making decisions.

(08:57):
How can anything change if there aren't more women in positions of decision-making?
Here's another story that I was shared.
mean, I have so many calls and so many stories with people when I try to, you know,evangelize the brand.
Another story I heard was a very, very, very, very, and I'm not going name them, very,very, very, very popular NCAA division one brand hired.

(09:24):
a consultant to come in and say, where can we better serve?
Right?
Where are we missing?
Where are the holes?
Where can we better serve to, you know, amplify our brand and be even more of a powerhousethan we are?
This was a middle-aged white man who came in, did, I don't know, three, four months ofanalysis.

(09:45):
Then he came to the conference room table and in the conference room are all middle-agedwhite men and two women, two white women.
And he starts to reveal his, his findings.
And literally the words that came out of his mouth were, I think that you have too manywomen in positions of authority.

(10:06):
And I think these women would be best served to not be in those positions and to actuallybe back home.
I think you need to bring in more men.
This was said in a conference room at a NCAA division one brands.
offices in 2024.
That to me is stunning.

(10:27):
It's not because that's what's happening all around the country in conference rooms allaround the country.
Whether it be sports, whether it be tech, whether it be finance, whether it be alcohol,whether it be whatever.
We are now being faced with.

(10:47):
Society challenging the ideas of roles for men and women.
It just is what it is You're right.
I shouldn't be stunned by it But this is why I wanted to have you on is to get educatedand to educate our audience that sort of you talked about the copy and paste template in
The your example was Major League Baseball does that exist in other sports and moreimportantly does it exist in some way in the culture at large?

(11:16):
so
Here's what I like to focus on.
I like to focus on the positive things that happen and the positive interactions that Ihave with people.
So I started building doors in March of 2024.
We were across five platforms moving into 2025 based on a data analysis.
I did the most engagement happens on LinkedIn and Instagram.

(11:38):
So that's where we're going to stay on our own pages.
They were on my pages.
one of the things that happened, which I
I want this to be something that everyone hears out loud and clear is that people arewatching you.
Whether they like a post, whether they comment, whether they share, people are watchingyou.

(11:59):
And halfway through the campaign, someone from the Cavs reached out to me, a middle-agedwhite man, and said, I've been watching you.
I like what you're doing.
And I want to put you in a room full of decision-makers so that you can be top of mindwith building doors.
I like to focus on, right?
That there are people that are watching, people that you would never think would besupportive of you that are.

(12:27):
And so that has happened several times where people have reached out to me and said, I'vebeen watching you and they're middle-aged, you know, men, right?
And I want to help you.
So I don't want this to be a male bashing thing because it's not.
There are so many men who are supportive of building doors and they fit the demographic ofmiddle-aged man, right?
Some of the biggest progress I've been able to make is with middle-aged men who believe inwhat I'm saying.

(12:52):
They have daughters.
They see the challenge and they want to make a difference.
So I want to focus on the positivity that I'm getting from not only women, but men aswell.
There's an inherent hypocrisy here, especially as it pertains to advertising and promo.

(13:13):
And that is women.
Let's just take sports promo as an example, are roughly half the audience.
Logic would dictate that women would be doing roughly half the promos and it's not evenclose to that.
So that's the disconnect.
Talk about that hypocrisy and like, where do you think literally the decision is made insomeone's mind to say this is half of our audience and we're going to ignore them?

(13:44):
I think it really goes back to those roles.
We're not used to having women voice for UFC or PGA tournaments or the NFL.
We're not used to that.
And again, the people who make decisions are not used to that.
And I really appreciate the opportunity to share.
think what you were just saying allows me the opportunity to share this stat.

(14:04):
When I started the campaign, I know how I felt, right?
After five years of trying and trying and trying and trying, I'm not repped by one of thebig agencies.
So a lot of those opportunities funnel through those agencies.
I'm not on those rosters.
I firmly believe that there are so many uber talented women who are passionate like meabout either sports or tech or finance or these male dominated genres who just don't have

(14:31):
access to the opportunities that deserve that chance, right?
And so I went in search of research to see, well, is my experience unique or
Are there other women who are experiencing?
There's somebody out there killing it.
don't know about.
Right.
Because obviously the campaign is hitting a chord, right?
It's obviously, you know, hitting a nerve with people.

(14:52):
So, I, I was in search of data and I couldn't find any.
I reached out to the folks at Nava and you know how they do that, yearly.
State of video survey.
Right.
And, unfortunately they didn't search because I'm, I'm, I'm really searching this veryniche slice of our industry, right?
So I just decided to put up a survey of my own.

(15:14):
Fine.
I'll collect the data on my own.
I had a link to a survey that was up for a month.
I collected just under 200 responses.
Of those 200 responses, about 54 % were women.
The rest were men.
So it wasn't terribly lopsided in terms of gender.
And what I garnered from that survey was that 73 % of male voice actors claim that theyhave received five plus auditions for male dominated sports promo.

(15:41):
in the last 12 months, leaving only 27 % of their female female counterparts to claim thesame.
Was this a scientific comprehensive exhaustive exhaustive study of our industry?
No.
But was it a wink?
Was it a glimpse in time as to how what is happening right now in our industry?
Yes, I believe it is.

(16:03):
And so when you take that information, I think it validates why building doors is hittinga nerve.
But I want to
I want to take a step and look at it through a different lens because there are men in ourindustry who are using their platform to say things like, yeah, I am seeing change.
I am seeing more opportunities for women.

(16:23):
you know, it's finally happening.
You know, we do have opportunity, you know, look, look at this person who's voicing thisand look at this person who's voicing that.
And they're right.
There are women.
I'm not saying there are no women voicing anything male dominated.
There are, but when you take that step from.
from the survey and you look at it through a different lens.

(16:45):
Let's say I am a man.
I have season tickets to an MLB game.
And for the last 20 years, I've had these season tickets and I sit at the same spot everytime.
Maybe it's behind home plate or, you know, they're good seats, they're good seats.
And all of a sudden, the last three to five years, I look around and instead of seeing abunch of men around me, I see a sprinkling of women.

(17:08):
Like, things are changing.
are great things are changing so I tell everyone yeah things are improving I'm seeing alot more women in my seats right now imagine you're a woman in the nosebleeds always been
surrounded by right and you always look down at those really great seats and you normallyseem now in the last three to five years you start to see a sprinkling of women a

(17:34):
sprinkling right imagine all blue seats and now you're seeing a few
pink seats, right?
From the woman sitting in that position, do you think things are equal?
Are they even close to equal?
But to the man sitting there, he thinks change is happening with the sprinkling.

(17:55):
We have a responsibility.
The people who are sitting in the nice seats have a responsibility to not give false hopethat things are better.
Yes, there are some women, they are typically the same women who do this type of work.
We love that.
I love championing them.

(18:16):
love celebrating them.
They're amazing women.
But to those women up there, right?
That, that when they look down to the 27%, it's not the same.
It just isn't.
And that's what building doors is trying to change.
Building doors is trying to meet face to face with brands and say, Hey, can you just nexttime you send out an audition?

(18:38):
ask for the equal number of men to women.
You're going to ask for a voiceover audition, ask for two men, two women, whatever,whatever it is, right?
Because here's what's going to happen.
They're going to, and these, know this because I've had conversations with brands face toface about their process, right?
So you're sitting around the conference room table and your ad agency or whoever yourcreative team, whatever brings you the ad campaign.

(19:06):
And you hear three men and you hear three women on the various screens.
One of two things is going to happen.
One, yeah, I think for this campaign, it is right to stay with a male voice.
Okay, great.
No problem.
But we have now allowed three women to be heard in a space that they otherwise would nothave been heard.
Three months, four months down the line, someone in that room has a project come acrosstheir desk.

(19:29):
Maybe it's an internal video.
Maybe it's something for a social media reel.
And they're going to say, you know who would be great on this is that one woman that weheard a couple of months ago.
We have planted a seed where one didn't exist before.
That's what Building Doors is trying to do.
If there is a woman who is featured as a door builder, who gets a job from HerReal, that'samazing, right?

(19:53):
That's great.
I don't take any money from that.
They have the opportunity to take that to their agent and work through or negotiate therates on their own.
That's great.
What building doors is really trying to do is we're not trying to be a talent agent.
We're not trying to be a brand manager.
We're not trying to be a casting site.
We are trying to work face to face with the brands, the people who make the decision andsay, just consider women.

(20:15):
Just consider more, just consider women.
Listen, listen to what we have to offer.
Because we believe that that is going to create more opportunities in the future for womento be heard.
Absolutely.
you mentioned earlier.
You had a conversation with a female sports reporter.
I watch a lot of football and maybe, maybe nowhere else.

(20:36):
I don't know.
it seems like we love women as sideline reporters, but my God, they'll they're like,nobody comes up the steps to sit in the booth and do play-by-play or color analysis.
The one exception to that rule, I think is Doris Burke.
Have you had conversations with people?

(20:57):
outside of voiceover, but still in sports media, specifically women and the biases thatstill exist even outside of what you and I do.
I will say one of the number one objections I get when I sit down and I talk with peopleis, Christy, I hear women on the radio all the time.

(21:18):
I see Erin Andrews report from the sidelines on Sunday.
Isn't there just like somebody who is the first female
MLB play-by-play announcer for a team.
Like, is this really a problem, Kristy?
Yeah, in New York, there's one.
Yeah.
Is this a problem, Kristy?
Is it really a problem?
And it goes back to something you were saying.

(21:39):
From where you sit, those seats I was talking about in the imaginary stadium, it's not aproblem.
Privilege is when you don't think it's a problem because it's not a problem for youpersonally.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
And it's hard, it's hard for people who sit in their privilege to realize that there's aproblem, because it's not a problem to you.

(22:00):
I'm a white woman.
I'm drenched in privilege.
I'm drenched in all kinds of privilege, right?
But when I think of non-binary folks in our industry, when I think of LGBTQ +, when Ithink of black women, Latino women, Asian women, Native American women, you know,
they're...

(22:21):
They don't sit in the privilege that I even sit in.
And so, yes, there are plenty of women that I have talked to.
One of them is our, we have a partner organization.
They're called Empow Herd, H-E-R.
The organization was started by two women who worked.
One worked for an MLB team and the other one worked for an NFL team.

(22:44):
And they were pretty, you know, high up there.
And they had a unique position where they saw
all of the ways that women are told no.
All of the ways that they don't care.
All of the ways that women are not even considered in the room.
So they left those jobs and started this organization and their sole goal with Empoweredis to create more opportunities for women in sports at every position.

(23:11):
From CEO to water girl to, you know, everything.
Stadium operations, everything.
Because the more women have those positions, the more equitable opportunity is created.
Yeah, I've had a lot of conversations with women about how challenging it is withinprofessional sports organizations and finance.

(23:36):
I spoke with a woman who represents on-air women who work in finance broadcasting.
There's very few.
There's very few.
and the challenges that they face.
know, while sports is my passion, it also exists in finance, tech, and other industries.

(23:57):
And a lot has to change.
And it's going to start with people like you.
People who sit in their privilege, acknowledge the fact that there is an issue, and speakup and do their part to help create positions or bring people into these positions where
they otherwise
weren't.

(24:19):
In those conversations and you, in your defense, you, like I, were voice actors, wererarely ever in front of the camera.
I think you do have some on-camera background.
Can you speak to, especially in sports, especially on camera, the sexualization of womenand how those roles that they do get are expected to be carried out?

(24:44):
love this question.
Did you watch the, Jake Paul, Mike Tyson fight?
I did not watch the fight.
No.
Okay.
Let's talk about that.
So, as you know, if you don't know the Jake Paul and Mike Tyson fight was highlypublicized, right?
And so Jake Paul, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, and he actually is from my area.

(25:07):
He grew up and was raised here.
so he purposely.
put the fight right before his to be two women, two professional athletes, twoprofessional boxers.
Right?
So the warmup fight before their direct fight was two women.
And I think boxing, everyone knows, or it's traditional that there's a woman who holds asign in between the rounds, know, and card girls, yeah.

(25:36):
so my daughter and I, our whole family watched the fight.
We stayed up to watch the fight.
And there was two men who fought, two women, and then the main event.
And after the whole thing was over, my daughter turned to me and she goes, the women were10 times more fun to watch than any of the men.

(25:56):
And I said, yeah, you're right.
They were.
And then when you look back to the data that they showed the next day, more people tunedin and watched the women fight than any other segment of the competition.
Then those scantily clad women, they purposely positioned these women who are the, youknow, the, whatever.

(26:18):
Yeah.
When the women were being interviewed after the match to talk about, you know, the fight,they put these women, these scantily clad women literally like right on top of them so
that their cleavage and everything else could be seen.
Why?
Because there's a view that

(26:39):
If we're going to have two women, professional athletes who are really good at what theydo, Fighting, we're not used to seeing that.
So right after we have to put how women are typically seen.
We got to squeeze that in somehow, right?
to the chest of food out, right?
And what I was waiting for was to see if anybody caught it.
If you looked at the comments the next day on social media,

(27:02):
And even from our fellow voice actors, male voice actors, they all said the same thing.
were like, what was up with that?
Why were all these scantily clad women put right next to these women who had bloody facesand all of that?
Because as a society, we're not ready for that.
We're not ready to see two women in a predominantly dominated male sport.
We can't appreciate their athleticism.

(27:22):
We can't appreciate what they did in that ring.
And the women were 10 times more entertaining.
And the data shows that.
Uh, you know, we had to stick in the norm.
We had to stick in the norm of scantily clad women right next to them when they were beinginterviewed because we had to appease the male audience.
You know, it's, it's just interesting how far we have yet to come because as a woman in2024, um, I'm so happy of what my daughter has available to her now.

(27:51):
I'm so happy that she has so much more than what I did when I was growing up.
But to see those things in a boxing match happen just shows how much farther we have togo.
It all goes back to the rules that we're not used to seeing women play.
Your example reminds me of the US women's national soccer team who very publicly hasfought for equal pay to the men's and has taken a lot of backlash from it.

(28:24):
And yet, when you look at, you know, World Cup, Olympic soccer, the women consistentlyoutperform the men.
Consistently, at least, you know, on the USA teams.
I mentioned the word backlash.
Has there been, I assume there has, what kind of backlash have you personally seen whenyou've tried to sit down and have these conversations or in other contexts?

(28:50):
I get messages from people.
I also hear whispers that I'm male bashing and I'm brand bashing.
The all building doors is, is a way to say we hate men, men stink.
We want to take jobs away from men.
All you're doing is telling brands that they stink and they're not doing the right thing.

(29:15):
And to that I say.
There are many brands that I can't say yet that I have publicly spoken to.
I will say as to a hint, I have spoken to an NFL brand that is a Super Bowl winning brand,recent Super Bowl winning brand.
I have talked to some major, major classic American brands.

(29:41):
And I can share that I've talked to the Cleveland Guardians, Valvoline,
the CAVS Sportsnet, which is the number one sports media network in Canada.
I spoke to their head creative guy and none of these people would talk to me if I was malebashing or brand bashing.
None of these organizations would offer to publicly support me and the building doorsmission if I was male bashing or brand bashing.

(30:11):
We have...
I haven't calculated it recently, but the last time I did it was almost over 30 % of ourInstagram followers are men.
I mentioned that middle-aged men have reached out to me.
I didn't reach out to them and offer me assistance.
If building doors was nothing but mail bashing or brand bashing, I don't think buildingdoors would have lasted longer than the month that I had planned it to.

(30:35):
I don't think that it would have gained the traction that it has or hit the nerve that ithas.
or receive the partnerships and collaborations that it has.
I think that to those people who think that building doors is brand bashing or malebashing, it says more about what you think of the progress of women in our society today

(31:04):
or even within our small genre of voiceover than it does about the campaign.
I'm interested you said you've gotten in some ways some unexpected support from peoplethat look like me, white, middle-aged, male.
I want to flip the coin and ask you if you've gotten any unexpected pushback from women.

(31:25):
Yes, I have.
Yes, I have.
Yes, I have.
Even those specifically within our industry.
Interesting.
the majority of the women that I have heard from or heard about that
don't like the campaign are in voiceover.
There are women who think that we have plenty of opportunities.

(31:45):
They've said so.
There's plenty of opportunities for women, Christy.
You just, it's your fault because you're not ripped by one of the big ones.
And I've had people say, is your lack of access to these opportunities because of yourgender or is it just because you're not good enough?
Maybe you're just not good enough.
That's why you don't have access because you're not a good enough voice actor.

(32:08):
what drives that?
that a fear of if we, as women speak up, then those opportunities may be taken away?
I don't know.
I can't speak to that because I'm not one of those people.
You're not one of those people.
There have been people who have said to me, you know, quote, you've got balls or, you'reso brave.
I don't think that at all.

(32:30):
I think I'm fed up.
I am fed up by doing things the way that everyone says you have to do things.
I did it.
I did it that way.
And so now I'm going to do it another way.
And if that upsets you, because I'm doing it this way as a woman, then that's on you.
That's not on me.
If it upsets you that I'm, making noise, if it upsets you that I'm doing things outside ofthe normal way I do things, then, then don't watch.

(32:58):
Don't watch.
This is not a Christy Harst campaign.
It's not.
This is a women in voiceover campaign.
And I'm trying to create more opportunities for women where they didn't exist.
I'm trying to go directly to brands to do it.
I'm not trying to take away anyone's jobs.
I'm just trying to change that 27%.

(33:21):
I'm trying that maybe in 2025 at the end of the year, it'll be 30.
Maybe it'll be 32.
Maybe in 2026 we'll get into the forties.
And I'm not trying to change the minds of voice actors.
Voice actors are not my target audience.
Brands are.
people who make the decision to hire voice actors is my target audience.

(33:42):
That's who I'm trying to change the mindset of.
And the more that I can support more women getting into those positions, the more I'mgoing to be able to create more opportunities in voiceover.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely, it makes sense.
Let's sort of wrap up on a more positive note.
Two things.

(34:03):
one, what are you most excited about for building doors moving forward?
And two, who has been building doors biggest supporters so far?
Question.
I love it.
love it.
I love it.
So I am so excited about 2025.

(34:24):
and here's why.
I am constantly adapting and tweaking and changing the campaign to make the most impact.
And I'm,
I want to hear people what they have to say, whether it's positive or negative, becausethat fuels me to change it and make it better.
In 2025, we are not only going to be featuring door builders, which are women who aregoing to re-voice scripts originally voiced by men in male-centric genres, but we also are

(34:49):
going to feature community champions.
These are people like Bev Standing, Tracy Lindley, Jodie Cringle, people that have, womenthat have really created
amazing things in their own voiceover career that support building doors and we're goingto feature them.
And we're also going to feature rising stars, women who are really down for the get downand have been super supportive of the campaign.

(35:14):
And we want to expose them in their dreams and get them ideally connected with their dreamclients.
And then we're going to have global builders.
So excited about the global builders.
Global builders are going to be women in voiceover that live in other countries.
One of the things that I have heard about constantly and women have asked, are you goingto do this campaign in other languages?

(35:37):
And here's the thing.
Let's say I did a spot that was previously voiced by a man in Spanish.
It's an iconic spot that someone would know if they lived in Mexico.
It wouldn't serve that woman to take this iconic spot in Mexico, re-voice it by a womanand do it in our platform.

(35:58):
It wouldn't serve them.
because no one in the States would recognize that iconic campaign as previously done by aman.
And they probably wouldn't understand the language, right?
So global builders, I'm asking them to do things that will build the brand throughout 2025in their neck of the woods.
Then in 2026, for lack of a better term, I'm going to franchise the brand so that they cando their own building doors in their own language in their country.

(36:23):
Therefore creating this global brand of equality, of equity,
for women in voiceover.
And I'm so darn excited about it.
I'm just, I cannot wait because 2025 is the year of 10X.
2025 is the year of greater impact, greater advocacy and greater awareness and not just inthe United States, but globally.

(36:45):
And I, I can't wait for it.
So now that answers what I'm excited about for 2025.
I think the people who have been most supportive are definitely number one, the voiceovercommunity.
Men and women.
I am so blown away by the support that I receive from voice actors, both men and women whoreach out to me on a regular basis and share their stories.

(37:09):
And I'm so grateful.
I'm so, so grateful to the voiceover community because without them this campaign wouldn'tget the reach that it has and the reach that it's going to get.
I would then say, I am so grateful to the women's empowerment movement.
There are women that I reach out to
in sports, in finance, in tech that are trying to blaze trails in their industry that havenothing to do with voiceover that accept my calls and really give me great advice on how

(37:41):
to navigate this space because it is challenging.
When you're going up against a status quo, when you're trying to change roles that havecurrently existed for centuries, it's nice to hear from other women that are doing it in
their lanes.
And so I'm
very grateful to those women just in women's empowerment, whether it doesn't matter whatlane, right?

(38:02):
What industry that have taken the time to speak to me about their stories and how theyhave navigated it, because it really does make me feel like I'm not so alone in what I'm
doing.
And it makes those back, those, those pushbacks and that negativity that I get not soharsh.
I think that's a, that's a great way to end.
was just at a conference recently and,

(38:25):
One of the speakers talked about raising your vibration, raising your frequency and yourenergy.
And when I asked you about what you are excited about, your frequency and energy wentthrough the roof.
I know, right?
And that's the greatest thing to me.
It's been a pleasure to learn about building doors.
It's been a pleasure to talk to you.

(38:47):
How can we help you moving forward, whether it's me personally or our audience?
love that you asked that question.
You can follow us on at building doors, VO on LinkedIn and on Instagram.
You can like tag and share by liking tagging and sharing.
You are putting a woman's voice into your network with potentially millions more eyes thatwouldn't see her.

(39:11):
And that's amazing.
And we have already seen the results of that like tag and share.
Now let's say, Christy, I want to do my mind to my no problem.
you can reach out to me at Christy at Christy horse.com.
for example, I'm going to be attending the W ESPN conference in May in Brooklyn, New York.

(39:31):
It's a very intimate face-to-face networking opportunity for me with, you know, sportsbrands.
And, such a voice has agreed to pay for my $800 ticket.
It's $800 for the ticket just to go to the conference.
Right.
But I'm still looking for a sponsor to sponsor my flight because the flight is an expensethat right now I can't take out of my own bank account.

(39:53):
so.
I'm looking for a sponsor for that.
So there are ways that if you really want to donate, I'm not really into the GoFundMe kindof thing.
But if you are interested in partnering in that way, that is great.
Also, we are going to be having Instagram and LinkedIn live events in 2025.
Please watch us.

(40:13):
Please like, share, comment.
We might be looking for sponsors for that too.
So there's lots of ways to support and show that you are down with our get down.
And I will assemble all that information and put it in the description on YouTube and inthe show notes on the podcast.
everybody has it.
Yeah, you're absolutely welcome.
Everybody has it in nice one neat little spot that they can access.

(40:38):
Thank you for being here and for educating all of us.
Thank you.
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