{"id":8061,"date":"2015-06-16T09:02:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T14:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/?p=8061"},"modified":"2015-06-16T09:05:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-16T14:05:04","slug":"diversifying-female-leadership-in-the-gender-equality-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2015\/06\/16\/diversifying-female-leadership-in-the-gender-equality-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Diversifying Female Leadership in the Gender Equality Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"amrita_singh2\"<\/a><\/em>Amrita Singh \u201915 is a film studies major and an Athena Scholar. She serves as\u00a0president of Columbia University Film Productions (CUFP), a Barnard Student\u00a0Admissions Representative, an IMATS<\/em> Media Technologist, and she\u2019s also involved\u00a0with the Athena Digital Design Agency. Additionally, she is an intern with Big Beach\u00a0Films. She\u2019s never been to Paris, but has always admired French cinema–in\u00a0particular, Truffaut’s Les 400 Coups– and the city\u2019s art scene both past and present.\u00a0As an Indian immigrant and francophile, she is eager to better understand\u00a0multiculturalism within a global context and as it relates to the particular history of\u00a0Paris, France, and also looks forward to participating in the symposium during\u00a0Barnard’s historic 125th anniversary.<\/em><\/p>\n

With Hillary Clinton\u2019s recent announcement regarding her candidacy of\u00a0presidency and the conversations surrounding the current state of female leadership\u00a0during a period of revived interest in women\u2019s issues in popular culture as manifested in\u00a0hashtag campaigns and impassioned speeches by celebrities, I find that the movement\u00a0pushing for gender equality would greatly benefit in the inclusion of the voices of women\u00a0that often go unheard. For instance, while the more recent HeforShe<\/a> campaign\u00a0importantly advocates that women\u2019s rights affect us all and invites boys and men to the\u00a0conversation, I wonder what more we could gain in focusing on diversity instead. While\u00a0it\u2019s incredibly important to highlight that gender equality is not strictly a women\u2019s issue\u00a0but one that affects us all, when we celebrate men as feminists to gain more traction in\u00a0advancing the women\u2019s movement what voices do we unintentionally drown out? In a\u00a0patriarchal society where women still remain largely underrepresented in positions of\u00a0authority, with their presence in top management positions remaining below 9 percent\u00a0according to a report by the American Center for Progress<\/a> despite reflecting the majority\u00a0of the population, its important to bring these experiences to the forefront of the\u00a0movement to effectively work towards correcting imbalances of power that permeate\u00a0nearly all industry sectors. Furthermore when considering how women of color fare far\u00a0worse in claiming leadership opportunities, the question of solidarity takes on a new form entirely.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I find programs focused on cultivating a group of diverse girls and\u00a0young women who see themselves as leaders prove incredibly valuable. Given my quiet\u00a0personality, I certainly didn\u2019t see myself as a leader until I entered Barnard College<\/a>, a\u00a0liberal arts college for women based in New York City. As a student pursuing directing\u00a0and opportunities in filmmaking, a male-dominated industry that notably lacks diversity\u00a0with a mere 7% of female directors last year according to the Geena Davis Institute on\u00a0Gender in Media<\/a>, I found the space of a women\u2019s college incredibly empowering in\u00a0demonstrating that leadership takes on many forms and is an ongoing process. I never\u00a0understood what the big deal was in being a leader, especially since I honestly felt most\u00a0comfortable on the sidelines. Without having to compromise who I am, in claiming\u00a0leadership, my voice felt validated. Thus, while many people still question the relevance\u00a0of women\u2019s colleges today, as an institution, Barnard was founded to challenge systems\u00a0of inequality and even figures prominently today in the discussion of women\u2019s rights and\u00a0in addressing pertinent ideas of gender identity.\u00a0This year marks Barnard\u2019s 7th year in hosting the global symposia series, with\u00a0Barnard student fellows both interacting with the larger New York community and\u00a0traveling to Rio, Mumbai and Paris to engage in issues of women and leadership. In\u00a0exploring feminism within different cultural contexts, the program relies on the diversity\u00a0of experiences to better understand how identity impacts one\u2019s individual encounter with\u00a0systems of inequality. By celebrating the importance of including a multiplicity voices,\u00a0both in theory with inspired discussions relating to relevant social issues, and in practice\u00a0by way of the vast backgrounds of the leaders participating in the program, the\u00a0symposium refocuses the conversation on feminism by tackling issues of representation\u00a0directly. From leading artists including Panmela Castro who engages with activism\u00a0through her vivid graffiti on the streets of Brazil to Helene Gayle, CEO of CARE USA,\u00a0an organization fighting poverty, the symposium in New York City draws from the rich\u00a0experiences of a diverse group of leaders to present a number of perspectives on explicit\u00a0challenges that women face at a global level.<\/p>\n

\"16618620978_a3a412d9b7_o\"<\/a>I had the opportunity to collaborate with high school students abroad in the Paris\u00a0Young Women\u2019s Leadership Workshop and amplify their voices by encouraging them to\u00a0embrace their identity as a platform for their leadership. Given the different cultural\u00a0settings a part of each city explored through the Symposium, the exchange between\u00a0Barnard students and participating high school students provides invaluable learning\u00a0opportunities on both ends. Using these interactive workshops to inspire participants in\u00a0developing social action projects empower these young women to see themselves as\u00a0leaders who can actually take the steps to bring about this change in their respective\u00a0communities. In cultivating a global network of individuals who embody what it means\u00a0to be a leader in this day and age, the Barnard Global Symposium<\/a> connects women of\u00a0different ages, backgrounds and beliefs across the globe to take part in the discourse of\u00a0women and leadership as agents of change, impossible to ignore. As Global Symposium\u00a0Panelist, Ndili Nwunelli said, “As young people we are told we are leaders of tomorrow.\u00a0Why tomorrow? We can be leaders of today and tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amrita Singh \u201915 is a film studies major and an Athena Scholar. She serves as\u00a0president of Columbia University Film Productions (CUFP), a Barnard Student\u00a0Admissions Representative, an IMATS Media Technologist, and she\u2019s also involved\u00a0with the Athena Digital Design Agency. Additionally, she is an intern with Big Beach\u00a0Films. She\u2019s never been to Paris, but has always admired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21118],"tags":[37843,641,3849,31078,129,21920,37842,21929,100],"class_list":["post-8061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-next-generation","tag-barnard-college-womens-leadership-global-symposium","tag-diversity","tag-gender-equality","tag-heforshe","tag-media","tag-women-of-color","tag-womens-college","tag-womens-leadership","tag-youth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8061"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8065,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8061\/revisions\/8065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}