Who says I don't deserve this

It’s International Women’s day today ! So, happy women’s day. The United Nations theme for 2021’s is women in leadership. 

There are very few women leaders in the world . Right now there are just 24 women as head of the countries out of 195 countries. Why is there such a huge disparity when we have seen that women leaders are just as good as any man. There are so many examples in the world right now.

We have Kamala Harris who became the first women Vice President of USA. She is a force to be reckoned with and beat all odds of being not only a woman but also Black and Asian. Angela Merkell, the chancellor of Germany has been in office since 2005. During the recession when al the countries were suffering, Germany was doing well because of her strategies and leadership. Last year, I participated in the online International MUN (find my blog on it here). I was part of the committee of UN Women and my country was Iceland. The Prime Minister of Iceland is Katrín Jakobsdóttir who is also second female prime minister of Iceland. Iceland is also the top country for gender equality. Nicola Sturgeon is the first minister of Scotland under whom Scotland became the first country to give free menstrual products to those who need it. Taiwan is right next to China however has no COVID Transmissions. There president is Tsai Ing-wen. In 2020, New Zealand was the first country to report that it was COVID free when all the other countries were peaking in cases. Also it is not because it is a ‘small country’ because there are a lot of small countries who did not report the same. It was the leadership and proper execution that got them there. Their Prime minister is Jacinda Ardern who is a incredible leader. All these examples proves my point that women are just as good.

However still why do we not have more women leaders?

Over the last year I have read two books: ‘Confidence code’ and ‘Brave not perfect’. They are both New York Times Bestsellers about women and for women. 

These two books are different in approach but come back to the point that women are not self-confident and don’t want to take risks. A lot of women's problems are because of the patriarchal system but that's just one part. The second is not having confidence in our own abilities.

We all heard about how women and men pay gap is huge because of the bias but it is also because we don’t ask for raises because we don’t think we deserve it. 

That is one is not in leadership positions. A lot of times we can’t ask people to do things for us. We don’t value ourselves correctly. Being a leader is about realising the potential in you.

We don’t want to take risks. We want to be perfect in everything and we are scared of failure. However leadership brings failures along too like everything in life does. Women don’t take criticism well when we should be taking it in stride. Criticism is an integral part of politics .A mistake doesn’t define you and you shouldn’t let it define you because we all make mistakes. As a leader, you can’t please all people. Your opinions and ways might be disliked and it is not your personal flaw. Why are all these things a problem?

The book ‘brave not perfect’ has an interesting quote-

“Boys are taught to be brave while girls are taught to be perfect."

Perfect daughters, perfect sisters, perfect employees, perfect wives and then perfect mothers. Perfect means you don’t do anything unless you are 100% good at it. 

Girls do better in school but when it comes to the real world, why is that women are paid less in jobs? 

From young, girls are to be the quiet and nice ones. Boys have a choice between being nice or not. When boys are not quiet and fight for what they want, it is said that “ They are acting like tough little men ” but when a girl does it “She is overreacting and needs to not cross the line”. We are told that girls don’t fight. We should not ask for more. We should not be proud.We are not supposed to be loud. We should be respectful . We should be perfect at school, perfect at any sport we play, and help at home without complaining. It is not a bad thing but do we do this to boys? Girls go through this mental torture of being pulled together on the outside. I am a privileged girl. I am extremely lucky to have a very supporting family. However, I still worry about how people think of me and everything I appear in front of them. I think about everything I say. Always worry if I was disrespectful. I don’t like being wrong or giving a wrong answer. I think one answer 10 times over to be sure of the answer. I worry a lot about what people think about me and don’t ask for things I need. I also don’t do well under scrutiny. However, I still try to keep all those things behind me when I raise my hand or stand and speak and interact with people. When I blog, I put out my work to the public to criticize or appreciate.  It is difficult. I talked about it on one of my previous blogs too. 

So I appreciate those women who go through this and still stand up and lead. And to others, if you related to this, this is your cue to stand up too. We don’t need to be perfect, we need to be brave. We need to be as brave as those women who helped us come this far from having nothing. The first step is the hard to take, however it is hard to continue walking when there are stones being thrown at you with every step you take. However we need to keep walking.

There might be a few who didn’t relate to this but there is something for you too. You here can see the mental battle some people have to fight. So be kind! Be thoughtful. Think before you criticize anyone on the basis of gender stereotypes. Moreover, push them ahead. Give them the support they need

I will end with a quote from the very inspiring Amanda Gorman's poem “a hill we climb” which she recited at the president inauguration- 

“There is always light. If only we're brave enough to see it. If only we're brave enough to be it.”