Testimonials
What Happens When Women Stop Coping and Start Strategizing
Physicians, dentists, engineers, and graduate students. Different fields, same problem: a system that was never built for them, and advice that told them to work harder inside it.
Here's what changed once they learned to implement career advancement strategies.
In their own words
Two women on what shifted for them, and what it cost before it did.
"The ROI for this program is literally career-saving."
Zeinab
ICU Nurse, Mom of 2
"I wish everybody, myself included, had heard this 20 years ago, because it would've been a lot easier."
Dr. Uzma Jafri
Family Medicine, Mom of 4
Written testimonials
From physicians, dentists, and students across three continents.
"In my 14-year career, I've been through a few mentorship and professional development programs. As a Muslim woman of color, I did not find anyone who was speaking to my specific career barriers and needs at work. Dr. Qaali's approach is unique in that she's providing an intersectional method, being a Black, East African, and Muslim woman who has been through all the trauma and 'isms' herself. She breaks down the racialized and gendered work dynamics and gives practical career advice in a way I have not yet received or seen elsewhere.
Dr. Qaali has offered us many culturally-specific tools, resources and first-person advice about how to manage up. How to self-advocate as an immigrant, as a woman of faith or woman of color. How to negotiate our contracts as working women, or as working parents. How to feel confident embodying our whole selves while at work.
I've also really benefited from the confidential, live, group coaching calls, where we were able to learn in a cohort model of giving and receiving tips, stories, advice and feedback from Dr. Qaali and from each other. It was such a safe space to share things we were going through at work on those calls. That has been so invaluable to me!
If you're considering taking one of Dr. Qaali's courses or working with her, just do it. It's an investment you will not regret one bit."
Lolla
Information Technology
"Dr. Hussein has offered much needed guidance to women of color physicians. Through this personal and professional development platform, Dr. Hussein has offered valuable skills on how physician women of color need to defy the norm so that we can achieve our dreams and maintain our values in a field that expects people to sacrifice everything in service of their profession."
Sondos Al Sad, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Family Medicine
"I definitely agree that it is possible for women to pursue their ambitious career goals, but at the same time, I am very aware of the influences that discriminating work and organisational policies have on the ability of women to pursue these goals. My introduction to the Defiance Academy's work has helped me see the possibilities out there. It helped me realize the importance of challenging discriminating policies and personnel and how I can make these systems work for me."
Dr. Fatemah
Dentist, Australia
"I often felt alone in my journey and I was determined to find someone who shared my background. That's why I discovered Dr. Qaali Hussein and I immediately enrolled in her Taking Up Space course. And let me tell you, that was the best decision I have ever made in my life.
Prior to the course, I was often discouraged by those who believed that someone like me could never become a physician. Because I took this course, it has opened up my eyes and instilled a new found belief in myself. Dr. Qaali reminds us of the challenges we will face on our journey and she teaches us how to navigate them."
Deqa Mohamed
Graduate Student
What changed
Not how the program felt. What it altered.
Fatima
Medical Student at the time, now in residency
Fatima wears a hijab. To be allowed into the operating room, she was told to take it off. She experienced bullying and daily microaggressions when she chose not to remove the hijab. She got close to walking away from medicine. What changed wasn't that she toughened up. She learned how to raise the issue so that it was hard to dismiss and hard to retaliate against, which is a specific skill and not the same thing as courage.
Outcome
The OR director sourced sterile hijabs for the entire hospital system and came to her for guidance. The bullying stopped. She finished medical school and is now in residency.
Hajer
Software Engineer, Paris
Hajer was ambitious, and had been for years. What she was doing was waiting. For a manager to signal she was ready. For a title that would make wanting more look reasonable. For someone with standing to tell her she was allowed. That isn't passivity. It's what you learn in a place where reaching higher without an endorsement is seen as arrogance. The work was learning to assess her own readiness instead of waiting to be recognized.
Outcome
She stopped waiting. She leads herself now, and she doesn't need permission or acceptance first.
A Machine Learning Engineer
Shared anonymously, at her request
She had never worn a hijab. Not once in her life. She wanted to, and she'd already run the calculation quietly: covering would cost her interviews, offers, the career she'd spent years building toward. So she didn't. She never felt comfortable in her skin even when she achieved the success. The work was building the nerve to walk in as herself, in the room where it would cost the most.
Outcome
She wore a hijab for the first time to an interview with a major tech company. She got the job.
Your workplace wasn't designed for you
Every woman on this page started in the same place: stuck, and told the problem was her. A strategy call is where we find out what is actually holding your career back and whether the Strategy Room is the right fit.
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