Our Story
Why "Like She Said?"
There is a particular kind of invisibility that many women recognize immediately.
It happens in conference rooms and classrooms, around dinner tables and city council meetings. A woman offers an idea that passes unnoticed, only to hear the same thought repeated minutes later by someone else and suddenly treated as insightful. She raises a concern that is dismissed until another voice legitimizes it. She contributes expertise, perspective, or lived experience that is acknowledged only after someone else restates it.
These moments are often described as isolated misunderstandings or unfortunate interpersonal dynamics. They are not.
Research across organizational psychology, leadership studies, and gender scholarship has repeatedly demonstrated that women are interrupted more frequently, receive less credit for collaborative work, and encounter persistent barriers to having their expertise recognized, particularly in male-dominated environments. For women of color, those patterns are often compounded by racial bias and stereotypes that further diminish credibility and authority.
One of the simplest interventions identified by both researchers and practitioners is remarkably straightforward: consciously amplifying women's contributions.
Like She Said was created as an homage to that simple act of amplification. It's an invitation to recognize women's voices, validate women's intersectional experiences, and participate in building a culture where their contributions are neither exceptional nor invisible.
Sometimes cultural change begins with three ordinary words. "Like she said..."
The idea didn’t begin with apparel.
It began with a research question.
I was doctoral student at USC, and became increasingly interested in a contradiction that seemed impossible to ignore. Women have outpaced men in educational attainment for decades. They earn the majority of bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees in the United States, and they continue entering professional careers in record numbers. Yet those gains have not translated into proportional representation in positions of leadership across government, higher education, business, or many other sectors.
My research sought to understand why.
The findings confirmed what many women have understood through lived experience long before scholars measured it. The barriers and biases were neither anecdotal nor isolated. They were systemic.
Women continue to encounter inequities in hiring, promotion, compensation, recognition, and leadership opportunities. Those inequities become even more pronounced for women whose experiences are shaped by the intersection of race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, or other historically marginalized identities.
At the same time, the political landscape has become increasingly hostile to women's autonomy with organized efforts to restrict reproductive freedom and healthcare, diminish legal protections, and reassert narrowly defined gender roles. These developments are not separate from the broader conversation about women's equality. They represent an ongoing struggle over whose voices carry authority, whose lives deserve autonomy, and whose participation in public life is valued.
At a moment when speaking openly can feel increasingly difficult, Like She Said exists to make those conversations a little easier.
Like She Said wasn't born because another clothing company was needed, but because culture is shaped through everyday conversation. The messages we wear, the books we read, the art we display, and the language we repeat all contribute to the stories we tell about ourselves and one another.
Through humor, history, art, and thoughtful design, the goal is not simply to sell products. It is to create objects that invite dialogue, affirm women's experiences, challenge patriarchal assumptions, and remind women that they are neither alone nor imagining the inequities they encounter.
Resistance doesn't always begin with a march. Sometimes it begins with a conversation. Sometimes it begins with a necklace, a t-shirt, or a coffee mug that says the quiet part out loud.
