A comment on the women’s day buzz
I don’t like claims like “I hope that my accession to this high office gives confidence to women everywhere” (Irina Bokova, upon her accession to the post of DG of UNESCO). What a clumsy sentence. I don’t know if those are her words or those of the journalist editing the interview but such proclamations taste of self-justifying delusion with an aftertaste of inaction.
I am not questioning that we need role models, but being a role-model cannot be a self-assigned role. One is a role-model if there are actual people looking up to one and wanting to reach that place. And for that, we need action. One doesn’t become a role model by ambition, one becomes a role model by popular acclaim. We need the women in high positions not to be just looked at by others thinking ‘it’s possible’ – we need the women in high positions to engage other women so that when they are looked at the thinking goes ‘it could be me’.
I wish Irina Bokova the best but most of all, I hope she becomes a true instrument of change because she is in a position now to bring something to lots of other people’s best too.
PS: International Women’s day on March 8 every year is a good day to take a minute to think about women as a group, be aware of what they bring and try to engage them more, to think of what it means to be a woman, what we can achieve as a group of people sharing something, etc. – but that’s a whole other topic :)
