Empowered Women
Women Empowerment, what does that mean in reality? Which women are we talking about?
I was so excited about the modern idea of Women’s Empowerment. That made me happy to be a woman in the 21st century. But does it mean what I think it means or is that just a fashion, a branding, a new hashtag?
The answer is YES, it means what I think it means. Women are having access to more high-level positions in the professional world and their voice is starting to be heard. The system is still far from being perfect, but it seems that it is going in that direction. Unfortunately, that new idea does not apply to any woman.
In some cases, the notion of promoting women’s career growth is used as a marketing message by companies to spread the idea of a more human, family-friendly workplace. But this is just a pretty elaborate gift wrapping. Inside the box, it is still the same. Of course, there are exceptions, and some companies do the right thing in encouraging and empowering their female employees.
These good companies where women are valued are the ones we should talk with because there is hope in them. They are doing their best. However, they are not perfect. Indeed, so many women are still invisible and not given a chance even in these great companies because of their social background, age, and ethnicity. Yes, it is still a thing, sometimes done unconsciously some other times knowingly.
For many of these women, the most painful is to have to work ten times harder to be awarded the minimum. Often regardless of their great achievement and hard work their efforts are still looked down. If THEY can do it, it is because it is not hard. Seldom were these talented women offered mentorship or opportunities. When they voice their ambition to also reach the higher spheres, they are asked to fight harder to be heard because it is how the workplace is.
They are fiery fighters too, the greatest and bravest life warriors but being at war every day and having to fight for even the prize they deserve is just too hard. The battles seem like lost causes and eventually, the wounds are too big, and the scaring takes too long. They finally give up, fall, and fail. One of these women who inspired me to write this told me “I spent my whole life in the workplace fighting to succeed, working hard, and playing by the rules, but the rules did not apply to me, and I kept being pushed back to the point where I ended in a deep state of depression completely burned out. I finally learned that to just survive and make a living I had to accept to stay at my place, that one place they chose for me”. Her only regret is that she had to spend her younger years and waste her talents fighting instead of building her career and preparing for a bright future.
So many women just give up and stay in the place they were assigned to or even quit the workplace emotionally destroyed. This consequently leads to the loss of a tremendously talented group of individuals. Among these women who already had to go through so many obstacles in society many of them are just exhausted of battling, others are pacifists who refuse to be at war all the time. For these powerful and brave warriors of life, empowerment is not on the menu, survival is.
How can we fix this? Real leaders, males, and females are needed. Leaders who can open their eyes wider look at people with no filter and recognize those of merit regardless of their age, origin, and social background. There is a lot of progress that still needs to be made here. Empowerment should be given to all women with no exception. Hopefully, we will follow that direction sooner rather than later. We will build a 21st-century women community that will have only one common battle to fight and win, to have access to the same opportunities as their male colleagues.
