The first time I had a “feeling” that gender equality is crucial between a woman and a man?
I was that little girl that would strive to have equality between her and her big brother, that little girl that had to divide responsibilities between her and her brother because “It is the fair thing to do” “Why should chores be gender specific?” that girl that enjoyed so much talking and helping her friends feel empowered. I guess it was sort of a “Things need to be fair and equal. We are smart, talented and have so much to offer!” feeling I have always had.
First time I read about Empowerment?
I have a psychology background, but I really dove into the word empowering while I was pursuing a Life Coaching certificate and I loved it!
The first time I really experienced what “Empowerment” means?
While working in Domestic violence. During my time working here, I watched the true definition of courage and bravery that victims had to stand up against violence, I saw how they empowered themselves and their kids to change their present so they could have a better future, it was truly inspiring. Watching the kids grow in social and emotional skills while I conducted the children’s groups was breathtaking. My time working in Domestic violence taught me two things:
- As a society, we must work on gender equality. Fairness among women and men, equal opportunities, equal payment, mutual respect, equal participation in decision making, the importance of non-violence at work and in their personal lives.
- We need to empower our girls to break these stereotypes and barriers, to make sure they receive education and to work on their confidence from an early age. It is also crucial to work on teaching our boys about gender equality and diversity.
The first time I had the feeling of immense love and paralyzing fear?
When I had my both my daughter and son. I felt ecstatic when I found out I was pregnant, I felt ecstatic when I heard their heartbeats for the first time and I saw them moving, I felt ecstatic when the doctor told me it was a girl and then a boy. And then, when I saw them for the first time, the array of emotions I had is unexplainable… an immense feeling of love, something so different than any other type of love and the biggest feeling of responsibility I have ever had. I was both so excited but at the same time so scared of loving these tiny humans so much but knowing I wasn’t going to be able to protect them from the world all the time.
My responsibility and personal mission?
Raise a daughter who has confidence in herself, who has dreams and will have the patience and persistence to achieve them, who will get up when she falls, who won’t ever let anyone tell her she can’t do something, who won’t let anyone belittle her and her abilities, who will respect others and won’t let anyone disrespect her or treat her like less, who will be caring and kind but also strong in character to stand up for herself and to the struggles that her future will bring, to not criticize other girls, but support and stand up for other girls, a girl who will accept, love herself for who she is and understand that she has many gifts and talents to share with the world, a girl who is brave and will take risks.
Raise a son who respects and values women, who understands and stands up for women’s rights, who can talk about his emotions, who encourage and supports women to pursue their dreams and take risks, who will be able to hear and respect a woman’s perspective, who is fair and gives everyone, no matter their gender, the same opportunities and chances to succeed.
This week, I had the immense pleasure of attending The Power of Lunch, a beautiful and important initiative of WE evolution, a non-profit founded by Maria Gabriela Hoch #mgabrielahoch with the mission to empower women. We had such an inspiring presentation by Milka Miliance @we_r_artemis on “Confidence & Trust – The Faces of Leadership”. We talked about the importance of having confidence in ourselves, of believing that who we are and what we can offer is valuable and at times we don’t even believe it ourselves. Hearing Milka and so many other inspiring women yesterday gives me so much strength and hope that we can encourage and support each other, fight against stereotypes, learn and develop strategies that empower women and speak up about our own perspectives of our personal and professional lives.
I have always been an advocate for gender equality and women empowerment, but after having both my kids, I not only knew I had a mission but I also felt it more than ever: Educate my kids to understand and value gender equality, empower my daughter to have confidence in herself but also raise a son who encourages, respects and values women. Teach them both the value of inclusion and respect for diversity. And it really starts at home with us as parents, what they see and what they hear is going to hugely impact who they will become.
How can we encourage gender equality with our kids?
- Your example. When it comes to gender equality, our kids are always watching how we behave and are always listening what we say. Show by example how they should behave, how they should treat others and how they should be treated.
- The environment. Generalizing is a big problem when teaching our kids gender equality. When we say comments like “Boys are strong” “Girls are pretty” we are pretty much engraving in their brain messages that are going to affect not only how they behave, but also how they feel about themselves. Every child, girl or boy, is unique and special, this is the message they must always get at home. We are all imperfect and that is perfectly fine.
- Encourage critical thinking. Encourage them to critically think about everything, especially when reading a book or watching TV, these are great moments to talk about what they see, such as stereotypes or messages that the media sends every day.
- Chores are for everyone. Encourage your kids to have chores and responsibilities around the house, but never ever divide these roles into “Women roles” and “Men roles”, instead of using gender stereotyped roles, kids should see it as cooperating and this is a responsibility that we must all have just because we are all part of a family.
- Gender roles are a big NO. Let kids be kids, kids don’t see gender roles, it is adults and society that impose the roles on them. Playing is a crucial aspect of being a kid, they have fun with any game or toy, give them the freedom to choose what they want to play.
- Pink for girls and blue for boys, always?! again, how much influence do boys get to pick the color blue? And girls pink? Big mistake! There are so many colors to choose from! Encourage them to pick any color they like, a color does not define your gender or personality.
Girls that we encourage today will be the leaders of tomorrow
Girls will play a crucial role as future leaders. Girls that we empower today will grow up to empower other women, not only will their quality of life be better, but they will also positively impact their family and the society where they live because of the economic growth they can provide. empowering girls is a long-term investment for them and for all of us.
So how can we help?
- First and biggest method of impact to empower our girls: EDUCATION. According to UNESCO, of the world’s 774 million illiterate adults, 2/3 are women. The share of illiterate women has not changed for the past 20 years. Among the world’s 123 million illiterate youth, 76 million are female. These gender disparities remain persistent, with little change over time. Education is not a privilege, it is a right. When a girl is not given an education, we limit her to the point that her future will have a huge absence of options to grow as an individual and professional. We need to encourage girls to stay in school and have the patience and persistence keep going! We need to invest in programs that will not only empower and motivate girls but also invest in protecting their rights and health.
- Teach girls to be brave, not perfect . “We teach girls to be perfect and boys to be brave”, these are the words of Reshma Saujani, she could not have said it better! She is the founder of Girls Who Code, a non-profit organization that teaches and trains young women about technology. In her inspiring TED talk, she talks about how we raise our girls to avoid risk and failure, we teach them to play safe games and strive for perfection in everything, and sadly we teach them to give up if they can’t reach “perfection”, so what happens when they grow up? They tend to avoid challenges, feel guilty or afraid, want to be perfect at everything and because of this, they look for validation or approval to feel better or to try something new.
- Trust in yourself. This is what we want our girls to have: confidence, and I believe it is one of our biggest challenges even as adult women. As we talked about confidence and trust in The Power of Lunch with Milka Miliance, it was very clear that as women we have a big responsibility to work on our confidence. I shared with the group how I have talked with many women, some stay home moms, some corporate, some with kids, some with no kids and I have seen something in common, how critical we are of ourselves! I’ve talked with stay home moms who felt they weren’t too professional and corporate moms who also felt terrible because they weren’t with their kids as much as they would like, moms who wanted to go back to the workforce, women who did not feel ready to start a family but felt pressure to have kids or felt judged because they made the personal choice to focus on their careers, and one thing I saw in common between all of us was a feeling of not doing enough, overachieving, of trying to make everything perfect, to be the “perfect” woman, or please others. Do we value ourselves and other women, the love, hard work and everything we give as stay home moms, as corporate moms, as women?
How can we develop a girl’s self-esteem?
It is crucial that we give our girls opportunities and support to take risks, to learn new skills and practice these new skills, she must learn that we will make mistakes and we must give her support when she makes these mistakes, encourage her to get up and keep trying. Whenever she displays a brave attitude or has the courage to try something new, whenever she reaches a goal, let her know how proud you are of her effort and for having courage and patience. We want them to have the courage to try new things, to understand that they will make mistakes and that is OK, to have the patience and resilience to get up when they fall and keep trying, and to understand that perfectionism doesn’t exist that they are loved and accepted no matter what, that they are valued for who they are inside, not how they look on the outside.
It is our responsibility, each one of us…
What we need to understand as a society, is that gender equality is a necessary asset to grow as a community and to make true progress. Diversity and inclusion is a crucial aspect of development. Societies and organizations must be diverse in gender, age, race, religious beliefs and nationalities, the biggest progress will come when we are able to do this. Although there has been progress in this area, there is still a lot of work to be done. That is why our role as parents is essential in teaching both our girls and boys the value of equality and inclusion from an early age.
All our actions affect our society; consequently, we have a personal responsibility to collaborate with gender equality, and we can! There are so many ways to make a difference in what we know and feel about this topic and to educate others; we can influence, awaken, promote change, collaborate, share ideas, participate! I’m happy and proud to say there are many movements and organizations that work very hard as agents of change, but individually, how much attention are we putting in the way we behave and speak in front of our kids? Just by doing this, each one of us could significantly transform our reality into one of positivity, passion, confidence, trust, enthusiasm, justice, equality, empathy, tolerance…
“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women.” ― Malala Yousafzai, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban
