What started as a national movement for equal pay for female garment workers in New York 106 years ago, has slowly grown into an endeavor to gain voting rights, end job discrimination and be provided with vocational training. Today, women are not only marching in the US but throughout the world, striving to be treated as equals.
The first International Women’s Day was held on March 19th, 1911.
Over a century later, the world celebrates the achievements of women in all facets of corporate, social, political and economic backgrounds. As a progressive nation, where women are half of the population, leveling the playing field is imperative for the advancement of Bangladesh. With the efforts of NGOs and micro-financing, women’s empowerments on rural and impoverished levels have seen significant progression. The women of this month’s issue have tackled the common notion that they are not as adequate, to excel in sectors from HR and Arts, to the Hospitality Management and Entrepreneurship. Additionally, women such as Sohara and Dureen are establishing themselves in avenues that have not materialized for their male counterparts. Being the first women to work on Wall Street, Dureen has changed the investment landscape of the nation as a Founder and Managing Director of Impact Investment Exchange while Sohara strives to protect a susceptibly weak Bangladesh from the irreversible effects of climate change.
Nevertheless, the widely accepted notion that economic stability and high-power positions should be male dominated proves to be a deterrent for women seeking the higher levels of professional mobility. Across all specialized fields, women are predominantly contributing to unrecognized labor sections while there’s a noticeable scarcity in the formal labor sector that entails positions of leadership, management, and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, access to education, fair wages, and proper implementation of women-centric laws have yet to make a significant step on the equality ladder. These issues need to be addressed as Bangladesh becomes a globalized nation in which a woman enters any employment, academic or political field where she is weighed according to her caliber and not her gender.
