Ashamedly, I had not heard of International Women’s Day before I came to the desert. It took getting involved with How Women Work and its founder Carolin to make me aware of this recognition and celebration of women.
Embarassingly, I knew very little of the suffragette movement until a few weeks ago on a flight I watched the movie Suffragette which gives insight into the movement and its impact on characters who were of different classes.
Admittedly, I haven’t paid much attention to the feminist movement whether it’s the still resonating Germaine or the latest ralliers like Chimamanda.
Aware of my privileges, I conferred the praise on my family. The mother who moved countries to ensure my post-high school education, the grandmothers who worked away and the great-grandmother whose wisdom seemed magnified by her lack of formal education. The men too, the father who told me, at maybe too young an age, that men only want one thing and the importance of my own source of income and a grandfather who educated four girls despite being ridiculed.
Yet, I am increasingly cognizant that I am a beneficiary of the endeavours of many unknown or forgotten thinkers and movers. Not so much a debt but a call to co-create a future where ceilings are removed and boundaries are erased. This future is being created in the present one thought and one action at a time by all genders.
Are you a co-creator of this vision of the future?