Let’s talk about women’s empowerment

Last week, women all over the world celebrated the International Women’s Day. I personally celebrated by finishing the “Testaments” by Margaret Atwood, watching “Little Women” in the cinema but above all by being grateful that

I have the right to vote,
I have the right to go to school and university,
I have the right to work,
I have the right to drive,
I have the right to choose who to marry,
I have the right to take a legal action if someone raped me or sexually assaulted me,
I have the right NOT to undergo female genital mutilation (whereas at least 200 million girls and women alive today have had their female external genitalia cut for non-medical reasons):

rights that thousands of women across the globe still don’t have in the age of humanoid robots, self-driving cars, and office buildings that know how much sugar you take in your coffee.

Why am I writing all this now?

On Women’s Day my boyfriend said something that made me get my thinking cap on and later spiraled up to this blog post: “At home, every day is Women’s Day.” Yes, because at home we respect and treat each other as equal. As simple as that.

Women’s empowerment comes down to respect and equal opportunities.

But there is an elephant in the room: this isn’t so simple in all aspects of my and – unfortunately – of many other women’s lives.

Even though I am privileged enough to have all aforementioned rights, rights that thousands of women in other countries only dream about,

I still encounter a way too many behavioral patterns and social conventions that are anything but empowering and respectful:

• I want to be taken seriously when I apply for a job – be it in the food, tech, or high-tech industry – and NOT be judged on my appearance but on my education, work experience, skill set, and motivation.

• I don’t want to be hired because I am a woman and will add to the diversity at a company, I want to be hired because of what I can bring to the company.

• I don’t want people to focus on what I am wearing instead of what I am saying during a presentation for which I have worked my fingers to the bone.

• I don’t want to hear that I have to choose career or family. I want to have the opportunity to be successful at both without having to compromise either.

• I don’t want to hear remarks like, “You will be 30 soon, but you don’t have kids. Don’t you want to have kids?” For the record, yes, I do, but when I feel ready and when I have made sure I can provide for my child independently.

• I don’t want to hear men justify the fact that there are more men than women in C-suite positions with “if the CEO was a woman, how would she manage the company during her maternity leave?”

• I don’t want to be afraid to go for a walk or run in the dark or travel abroad alone because I might get raped or sexually assaulted.

• I don’t want, by empowering women, to undermine or exclude men since men have just as much to bring to the table as women do: I am done with women-only events, women-only coworking spaces, women-only career coaches.

As I am an ardent believer that women should empower one another, here is my message to you, mothers, sisters, daughters, spouses, girlfriends, go-getters, leaders:

Believe more in yourselves;

Don’t give up on your dreams and ambitions even if someone finds them too daring;

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t feel ready to become a mother yet and want to invest in your personal development;

Don’t be afraid to speak up when in the company of men alone;

Never let anyone tell you what you are and aren’t capable of;

Be your own trailblazer!

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Here is a pinch of empowerment I recommend you to take in your free time:
Watch Little Women; Read The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, Beloved, The Awakening, The Color Purple, The Yellow Wallpaper, A Room of One’s Own, Little Women.