As an intern in Washington DC I had the opportunity to attend conferences, visit museums and meet professionals with great careers. This is how I attended the World Bank and IMF´s Spring Meetings which was an opportunity I\’ve been waiting for since I arrived in this city. The sessions were attended by approximately 2,800 delegates from the member countries, 800 members of the press, 550 accredited civil society members and 350 observer organization representatives, and Yes! I had the amazing opportunity to be one of the observers as an intern of the Trust for the Americas, an member of the Organization of America\’s States.
The sessions were related to social risk, inclusion, migration, gender, and other relevant topics like the crisis in Venezuela. Certainly all of them are important issues, but it is not my intention to explain what was discussed in each one.
I wanted to write something I didn\’t expect to perceive and reflect on. This is the representation of women in leadership positions at all levels. Why? Because I want to reflect on the issue of what most of the people think or imagine when they hear the word “president”, “prime minister” or “CEO”.
What is the image that goes through your mind? A man or a women? Especially us, women, what do we imagine when we hear that word? Can we relate to a women in such an important position?
During the sessions, I noted that the panels were formed by men and women. Until I found one panel thats was integrated only by women and whose topic was to address the challenges they had to overcome to become actual leaders: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Former President of Liberia (the first elected female in Africa) and Nobel Peace Prize 2011; Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Former President of Chile; and Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer of the World Bank.
This is the panel that I want to tell you about and that concepts that thrilled me.
“When I was minister of health the girls told me they wanted to be doctor. When I was a president, girls told me they wanted to be president” said Michelle Bachelet. It is amazing how we women can inspire each other. I really agree when Michelle Bachelet says that women need to be more involved in leadership positions, so that little girls can relate to a role model and believe “I can be that too”.
This is not going to be easy at all, but it is on our hands. As Michelle Bachelet said we are talking about a different type of women: “there are the women who are double and triple discriminated because they are women, are rural, are indigenous, are poor, are also women with disabilities or come from an ethnic group”. We have to work for each one and show them that in other areas of the world there are women who overcame the same situation and, hey! She made it!
Like Maryam Monsef, Canada\’s first Afghan cabinet minister, who settled with her family in Canada as a refugee from Afghanistan in the 1990s. Claudia Palacios, an independent journalist from Colombia, asked her “Have you ever faced any rejection when you tried to participate in government because of your migrant status? Maryam responded with a smile she couldn\’t hide “I am a woman, I am a refugee, I used to be young, I am Muslim from a certain part of the world and I am representing a lot of change that the status quo is resistant to so I have experience pushback? Absolutely, just google my twitter account and see all the hate that comes my way”.
This is the kind of story many girls should know, when they are afraid, they live risky situations or think some careers are not just for them like politics or STEM careers. Especially in those places in which women are considered as second-class citizens. We can check the numbers of global gender gap in the researches of the World Bank: “It will take 108 years to close the overall gender gap and 202 years to bring about parity in the workplace”.
To conclude, I would like to refer to Michelle\’s words to men “do not be afraid, we want you to have great opportunities in life, we want you to be happy. But we women also want that”. This conquest must be done together, participating in spaces such as these, reflecting and proposing together. And to the question, can we see women in important positions? When most people hear about a leadership position and can indistinctly imagine both men and women as alternatives, we will be on the right track.
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