by Allison Rapson

Concerned with the focus many beauty magazines and websites place on unrealistic body ideals and weight, Alexis Wolfer launched The Beauty Bean to provide women with a glamorous beauty site with an unparalleled focus on inner-beauty and health. The Beauty Bean brings together Alexis’ love for beauty and fitness, as well as her desire for all women to feel beautiful and confident. One of the ways that Alexis is nurturing a spherical approach to beauty is through her support of The Somaly Mam Foundation, an inspiring organization dedicated to ending sex slavery around the world.

Alexis graduated summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis and earned her Master’s Degree from Columbia University, writing her thesis on the role some women’s magazines have in promoting negative body image. She also brings her previous professional experience at women’s magazines and websites to The Beauty Bean. She currently lives in Manhattan.

Our Conversation:

AR: What does it mean to you to be a woman?

AW: Wow that’s a weighty question for a woman with her Master’s in women’s studies! On the one hand it means everything: being a woman means being part of a shared history, it defines how we interact with the world and, more profoundly, how the world interacts with us. On the other hand, though, we are all unique individuals comprised of much more than our femininity and we cannot forget to honor those differences as well.

AR: How have you been ‘the first’?

AW: I am the first female entrepreneur in my family and the first in my family to have worked abroad.

AR: What do you know that the women rising need to know?

AW: That we can only rise if we rise together.

CLICKABLE INSPIRATION:

Check out The Beauty Bean!
Learn more about the Somaly Mam Foundation