March 17, 2018, Melbourne. Exactly a week and two days ago, the entire world “celebrated” International women’s day on 8th March. College students, job seekers, employees, employers, men and women, everyone expressed their feelings for the ladies by presenting gifts, asking for dinner, or even long drives; some might have even repeated the entire Valentine week!
After 200 odd years of hard-fought struggle, unforgettable sacrifices, countless rallies, and numerous glorified achievements, we have finally realised the importance of women in our society. So, that should mean that we have successfully campaigned #PressForProgress, #MeToo, #IWD2018 etcetera, but have we?
It’s been just a month that I have been working with TutorVersal. To improve our clientele numbers, we are rigorously working on improving our services by updating the website, training the newcomers, and what not. The in-house and international teams in UK, US, Malaysia, Singapore and other outlets, have been focusing on generating leads by creating engaging content, both in quality as well as quantity.
Our Melbourne team, in particular, has a total of 12 content writers, divided into different teams to meet the dynamic market needs. Among them, 5 are women.
March 9, 2018. The day began as any other day in the office. I heard faded beats coming out of Alex’s JBL headphones. He greeted everyone as he had taken the day-off on women’s day. Smiles spread around for a moment as he cracked some “jokes” regarding our in-house business communication experts, and once again there was pin drop silence, and everyone returns back to the same phase.
Like any other day, after lunch, I was observing the 11/58 Station Street while contributing a trifling amount of toxicity to the environment.
My roof-top brainstorming session made me realize that I should at least think of something to offer, any GIFT for my colleagues on the eve of women’s day.
A teddy, a cake or something with a pink shade?
Yes, that would do. I could gift them some feminine matter that complies with the women’s day “protocol”.
In 1818, women didn’t have the power to demand anything but now campaigns such as #MeToo have become the new “cool”.
We can greet all the women, in fact, we can greet as many people as we want, but in the end, does it really matter?
What is the real purpose of all the rallies and campaigns? It is changing, isn’t it?
But, have I changed? Probably. But does it REALLY make a difference? I guess not.
We claim at TutorVersal for providing the best quality services to address all students’ problems. Isn’t equality for women one of them? More than 50% of the total college students in Australia are women and it won’t be a surprise to know that they face discrimination every now and then – direct or indirect, inside or outside the campus, as colleagues or even generally.
In Australia, more than one in three women have faced harassment and one in every two have been sexually abused. How can anyone change that? What can I do for the cause?
The most hyped word – feminism, has overshadowed the essence of equality. The so-called NGO’s and other groups from all over the world have been shouting out at the top of their voices, maybe to bring about change, or is it happening just to gain publicity?
If that solves the problem, then I congratulate them in advance. Though I hope we don’t just see a shift of power from one kind to the other.
Yes, we need to aim for the fundamentals, we need to address the elephant in the room, we need to strive for EQUALITY!
Let’s change ourselves, let’s spread the message.
From now on, instead of some, let us gift the entire kind.
And that would make the perfect GIFT and the ideal celebration on the eve of women’s day.
In my defense, I didn’t get any gift as well! #equality
