She’s fierce, she’s powerful, and she’s a self-made millionaire. She’s feminist business leader Barbara Corcoran, and she’s the type of badass woman that every little girl should aspire to be. If you’ve never heard of her before, here’s some quick background info.
Born in Edgewater, New Jersey in 1949, Corcoran came from humble beginnings. Her father was a printing-press foreman and her mother was a stay-at-home mom. As the second oldest of ten children, money was always tight growing up. However, Corcoran always knew how to make the best of any situation. Such was the case in 1973, when she used a $1,000 loan to co-create a real estate business called The Corcoran Group.
The firm was enormously successful, and in 2006, Barbara sold it for $66 million. Since then, Barbara has appeared on several television shows, written multiple books, and delivered countless speeches across the world. She’s also a prominent investor on ABC’s Shark Tank.
But when it comes to her advice for fellow businesswomen, Barbara has some… contentious input. In May 2016, she made headlines when she tweeted, “I find running a #business in a man’s world to be a huge advantage. I wear bright colors, yank up my skirt + get attention.”
Barbara later clarified her controversial remarks in an interview with Good Morning America.
“I think it’s so obvious that if you’re a woman or a man—it’s nothing to do with what sex you are—you’ve really got to play up what you’ve got,” Corcoran said. “I happen to have great legs. I didn’t have the best face always or the best body, but I have great legs. So if I want to get attention, and I still do it, I wear my skirts really high, I yank up my skirt at the midriff, and I walk into a room and everybody notices me because I’ve got great legs.”
Say what you will, but Corcoran’s strategy of exploiting men’s weaknesses is what made her millions. In the eyes of a feminist business leader, it’s a tried and true case in which the ends justify the means.
