The month of March has indeed been of particular interest to me as I had the opportunity to moderate two forums and one speaking slot on well-being. All these were in conjunction with International Women’s Day's celebration. In fact, this is my first year celebrating this event.
In the forum that was organised by Women Who Code, a young lady Caroline Louise Thomas came up to me and asked what does International Women’s Day mean to me? It kept me reflecting for days.
‘Every woman should have a fair opportunity to make the right choices for herself and the space to express her talent and passion.The birth of the joy of living fully and authentically is the reason for the season. She believes that her environment will empower her as the surrounding encourages her. I look forward to the near future when the discussions and questions are on how we can be more of, who we truly are and have the raised expectations of who we can be. We will celebrate the bygones where discussions were about how to remove the obstacles and work even harder to live our dreams after having fulfilled the dreams others hold us accountable to. Every girl will talk about her dreams on how she will get there, where the true celebration of, being, begins.’ The death of feminism and the resurrection of humanity it will be.
This forum was indeed a celebration of Wonder Women from the coding world. More than 60 women gathered to find out the secret of success of the panellist of women who have made it in the man’s world. There were different types of questions around the topic, but one distinct pattern of thinking emerged between the panellist and the audience.
The audience were curious about how these women succeeded among men and how they managed competition from men. Instead, the panellist surprised the audience as they operated from a space where these thoughts did not exist. They were not even thinking of men as competitions nor an obstacle to their growth. In fact, some of them had mentors among the men. The mindsets were two worlds apart.
There was a feeling of liberation from the unknown enemy in the room as the group opened up to have conversations about moving forward in their career and having a support system that will enable them to pursue their passion. The possibility to have it all as they transcended from the superwoman syndrome to wonder woman by having clarity of their identity and making the right choices for themselves and people who mattered in their lives. Did I mention that there were men among us to support the celebration?