The fervor started with Birlasoft Limited’s request to address their employees of all genders talking about ‘Womanhood: The walks of her life on March 3rd. The session was a part of their employee engagement outreach. The session saw accomplished panelists including a clinical psychologist, Puroitree Majumdar, talking about unconscious biases. Yukti Kapoor Mehndiratta, Founder SBY Academy, and Richa Singh, CEO of Yourdost spoke about breaking the glass ceiling and recognizing unique challenges faced by women respectively. The session was attended by over 70 employees of the listed company. WE spoke about the balance internally that translates to a balance outwardly. The Yin – Yan , Purush – Prakriti or Shiv-Shakti. All propound the importance of balance and equal importance to all genders and the unique strengths that complement each other to make a whole.

Scope, a social impact company based in Helsinki, Finland identified women from across the world that choose to challenge and recognized them on their blog as well as social media platforms. It was a proud moment for me to be featured with 3 other ladies from Kenya doing phenomenal work in Gender inclusion and diversity. Merci Korir is a doctor and health journalist addressing biases in the media, Carol Nag’anga’ is a cervical cancer survivor and runs an initiative for other women cancer survivors and Narima Waka works extensively in 10 countries with women and youth engagement and informing them on the importance of political participation Here is a link to the blog.

Outlook publishers reached out for a panel discussion and I was again humbled to be in the august company of some amazing women. Reena Raju is a heart transplant recipient and continues to be an athlete, now also inspiring and facilitating other transplant recipients. Alka Pande is a well-known art curator, author, and historian. Shikha Sharma is a Co-producer, who among other films has also Co-produced Shakuntala Devi and Toilet Ek prem Katha. Here is a link to the discussion that was moderated by Lachmi Debroy, asst editor Outlook.

There was also a recorded interaction with Smita Kulkarni of stonesoup.in (where WE source our menstrual cups for gifting to marginalised women – this takes care of their feminine hygiene for upto 10 years). The recordings delieated the things we choose to challenge – also the theme for this woman’s day.

And finally, WE took the opportunity to take a menstrual hygiene session enabling the enabler – working with 30 teachers of Arpana trust – imparting them information to choose to challenge a negative mindset around periods. So what did you #Choosetochallenge?

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एक वैश्विक ब्रांड सुपर्णा चड्डा को स्वीकार करता है और उसकी सराहनीय कहानी दर्ज करता है ।वोल्वो ने सुपर्णा की कहानी को महाबलेश्वर के पहाड़ी शहर में दर्ज किया, वहाँ उन्होंने अपने लक्जरी ब्रांड वोल्वो XC90 को दुनिया की सबसे सुरक्षित कार के रूप में जाना!ऑटोकार इंडिया ने यूट्यूब पर अपने 10 लाख ग्राहकों के लिए महिला दिवस पर कहानी प्रकाशित की। सुपर्णा प्लेटफॉर्म वुमनएन्डरंग की संस्थापक भी हैं। वह इसे एक सुरक्षित दुनिया बनाने के महत्व के बारे में बोलती है और हमारे बच्चों के आनंद के लिए सुंदरता से भरी दुनिया को पीछे छोड़ने में सक्षम होने के लिए।

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The next day is like any other. The girl in the bus still gets those looks, women still think twice about taking a cab at night, the washer man’s son gets preference over the daughter in the family, choices are skewed in favour of men and sometimes women themselves are biased against their own kind.

So what does the day change if at all? Is it just a day for brands to come up with eye-catching ads to outdo each other? Is it a day when all of us women feel great about ourselves or is it that we celebrate it simply because that is what everyone is doing? It is important to look deep within ourselves and find out why we want to celebrate womanhood on one day? Shouldn’t it be celebrated every single day of the year?

This year, on International Women’s day, multiple initiatives were kicked off, most of which made it  to headlines. Hillary Clinton took to twitter to talk about women’s empowerment, google released a video titled #onedayIwill, women took to the streets to ask for gender parity, brands like Titan released special ads.

Clinton tweeted, ‘Advancing the status of women and girls makes economies grow and nations more secure. It’s the right—and smart—thing to do. #IWD2016 –H’. She also referred to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt holding the first women-only press conference at the White House.

Google took the opportunity to release a video which featured not only the aspirations of women captured in the phrase, “One day I will” but also Malala Yusufzai poignantly saying, “One day we will see every girl in school”. A touching tribute to womanhood, the video presented as a Google Doodle, became the talking point for the day.

Several brands took to different media to express their positioning on Women’s day, Titan being one them. Titan Raga’s #breakthebias advertisement about workplace bias set minds thinking.

Some enterprising men also participated in the public discourse around women’s rights. While it is great to have people commemorate a day through a variety of initiatives and remember for that one day that we were born equal, it goes without saying that this can only be a starting point to usher in a change.

But when will this change occur? Haven’t we waited long enough? Here are some statistics to make you wonder about the dismal state of affairs. The World Economic Forum predicted in 2015 that gender gap won’t close till 2133. Now that’s a long wait!

So what can be done to change the status quo or simply to urge the needle to move in the right direction?The first prerequisite for any kind of change, is a change in our own mental attitude. While it may sound cliched to repeat words that have been spoken through generations, any change on the outside will be ineffective till the mind decides to change.

Let’s get rid of hidden biases that we all harbour, respect ourselves more than ever and take a step to change attitudes including our own. Let’s take forward the healthy thoughts and actions we come up with every year on women’s day.

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