Women who can, who make a difference | CityEye Blog

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Women who can, who make a difference. We need more women. We need more women in all the places of power, as well as leading companies.
Justine Greening, Minister for Women and Equalities, quotes David Cameron:

“Where the potential and perspective of women are locked out of the decisions that shape a society, that society remains stunted and underachieving”.

Women need to be visible, to be respected, and to get equal pay for equal work. It is not just access, but also attitudes. They run deep and we live in a paternalistic, class ridden society. We need to call out sexism whenever it occurs.

Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia wishes that when she was in office, she had called out the sexist behaviour and language earlier. Now she has gone on to be Chair of the Global Partnership for Education.  At G7 in Canada this year the address was by Malala Yousafzai.

Perhaps we need to take a wider, more global look across the world. The Irish peace women, the Iron lady of Liberia, and the women who camped outside parliament to bring an end to the current war. Perhaps if women ruled the world, there would be more compassion, more conciliation. More collaboration before unleashing weapons.

Baroness Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations

“Never take the pup you are being sold, that you are powerless. You are an exemplar and a role model. It is really important to understand that you have as much power as you chose to take. We all have as much power as we chose to take. Critical mass, was what I achieved with other women politicians. When I was in the Foreign Office, we did forced marriage, we did international child abduction. It is really important that we take all the feminists with us, female and male, and we all understand that equality is a real issue.”

Susan Munroe, CEO at Freedom From Torture

“Feminism probably has to start very early. Making sure that mothers teach their daughters that they can do anything that they want. Boys much more are taught that they can do anything they want.  Also believing that you can do what you want, you don’t have to dress, or conform, or behave in a particular way, if you don’t want to.”

Athene Donald chair of the Royal Society Education Committee, 2009 -2010

“Early years education is absolutely important. If we start with why don’t more girls become engineers.  We start right from birth to differentiate. It is massively bad for both, boys have plenty of careers they would feel uncomfortable pursuing.  We are to some extent going back to a world when boys wear blue and girls wear pink and toys are divided.  My generation and my children’s, didn’t have pink Lego. We are going backwards, and it’s marketing and the media.”

Michelle Obama at  Mulberry school in London girls school:

“I see before me a room full of Barristers, Doctors, I see leaders who will inspire folks all across the country and all around the world,

Anne Summers held the Office of the Status of Women, in Australia from 1983 to 1986, which developed women’s’ policies and got the party to adopt them.  Sex discrimination legislation, affirmative action legislation, major development of childcare.

“I’m now more interested in principles: economic activity, education, right to equal pay, right to control your body, violence against women.  These are things that go across borders.”

As a result the Australian Broadcasting Corporation had 50 per cent women from top to bottom, Macquarie’s bank 43 per cent and counting.

Gail Kelly, former CEO, and ranked 8th most powerful women globally by Forbes:

“Help one woman out of poverty and she’ll bring four with her. It’s a good investment.”

Tony Hall of the BBC, is putting at least one women in every panel of five:

“If career progression was based on pure merit, some male business leaders and law firm senior partners would never even have seen the paintings on the boardroom wall. This is disappointing for the talented women who lose out, but is also damaging to the organizations which lose what they have to offer.”

Lucy Scott, Moncrief Vice President of the Law Society

“The depressing factor is looking back at these quotes by amazing achieving women, since 2013. Equal pay and respect hasn’t changed, it is going backward. The new generation of feminists don’t realise how much was achieved in the 80s, but especially women’s roles during the war. Good enough to transport planes from Spitfires to Heavy Lancaster bombers, but after the war, women were not allowed in the RAF, or air training cadets. More pilots to come.”

©2017 ionthecity.

About the author

City Eye became interested in Overlooked and Overshadowed women, both in contemporary times and through out history. The former would include the women passed over for the Nobel in favour of their male colleagues. The later would be the wives of famous men, such as Mrs. Mandela. Her study of women written out of history, led her to interviews with interesting and inspirational women, (and some men). Extracts will be published in the articles. In no way is this men versus women, as to who is better. Simply that an overly macho, military, testosterone fueled environment, mainly men, needs the balancing attributes, often, though not exclusively, assigned to women: caring, conciliation, communication. Find out more: City Eye Blog ©christina ionthecity.wordpress.com
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