From the desk of Sohini De, Founder of Wind of Change, a company where we strive to remove all bias and work towards #balanceforbetter. She summarises our #IWD19 series featuring some outstanding ladies. Let’s check out what she has to say:-

As we come to the end of our #IWD19 feature, we want to thank the amazing ladies who gracefully agreed to share their thoughts, experiences and wisdom with all of us.

While writing concluding comments for this series, I thought of sharing the various viewpoints that I came across in media this time. There were a lot of questions raised about whether we need one specific day for women. That said, isn’t everyday women’s and men’s day, in turn every day is tribute to humanity? Having a women’s day is discriminating women from men in the first place. I totally understand the sentiment of this group, as I am also one who dislikes being differentiated.

However, I believe it is important to acknowledge this day. While analysing the Women, Business and the Law 2019 report, CNN mentioned only 6 countries in the world have equal rights for women, despite the World Bank Report showing significant progress has been made in the last decade.

I was lucky enough to be raised and treated as an equal by my family and friends. But when I worked very closely with Corporates globally over 2 decades, representation of women at every level are still shockingly low or non-existent. I have personally faced those challenges like many more and tried to break that very real glass ceiling.

Of course one day a year will never solve a problem but at least if that day is utilised to acknowledge that the problem exists, put in realistic actionable plans, work on those for the rest of the year, it is a good start.

Most of the time, this day is confused with a celebration of womanhood by giving us pink cakes, chocolates and roses. But I believe the day will be better used if it is acknowledged by everyone, as it is striving for dignity at every possible level. Whether it’s at grassroots, swanky offices or at homes and society globally.

Hopefully more and more people will join forces and strive to work towards ‘every day is a woman’s day’, I know I will. I am not much for those pink cakes and roses, which make my nose bleed literally, I might as well concentrate on working for a better place to live in for our children. Thanks to my Wind of Change colleagues who encouraged me to share my two pence on this very relevant discussion.

Reference: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/31327/WBL2019.pdf

A great view from Sohini’s perspective. This concludes our celebration for International Women’s Day 2019.