The last session of the Spain-India Women's Dialogue on Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Social Impact focused on the role of women in civil society. The speakers were Manali Singhal, lawyer and legal counsel, Maryam Luzárraga, partner at PwC, Jyotsna Kaur Habibullah, Chairperson of FLO Lucknow and Eva Levy, Honorary Chair of Women CEO.
The panel was moderated by journalist Marta Pastor, and emphasised the role of the press as a mouthpiece for women’s growing, much-needed leadership role. Maryam Luzárraga stated that female leadership already exists, but it is not discussed as much as it should be in the media, especially as an example to motivate women, though she also mentioned the risk of stereotyping. The role of the media to denounce situations in which women are still marginalised and attacked, such as gender violence, was also discussed. In fact, the speakers highlighted that the session’s title (Leadership in a Challenging World) was very telling of women’s current social situation.
Manali Singhal highlighted three key factors for the advance of women: empowerment, education and social change. Maryam Luzárraga emphasised that this change needs to be cultural and social, and that it must start within families by teaching sons, fathers, husbands and men in general new values. Eva Levy added that women must learn to value and respect themselves to begin with as the starting point for any change. Jyotsa Kaur Habibullah backed this idea and emphasised that women have an obligation to generate change and must be aware that activism is the only way forward.
Manali Singhal shared with the audience a good example of the progress that women can make. She explained how she achieved an important victory together with her daughter at India’s Supreme Court in the defence of freedom of expression after two young people were arrested for their comments on Facebook. The Indian participants also emphasised the crucial role of the Indian justice system to improve and defend women’s rights in the country.
As Chairperson of FLO Lucknow, Jyotsna Kaur Habibullah offered an overview of the programmes run by FICCI for the empowerment of women. Focusing on rural areas, she highlighted how hard it is for women in India to own land. She mentioned this as one of the main issues, as it hinders their access to funding to carry out economic activities to foster growth and development.
Regarding career development in Spain, Maryam Luzárraga shared her views on women’s position in the business world, where talent must take precedence over gender and where leadership must be shared. In her experience, the different skills men and women contribute to the workplace offer huge added value, which companies should fully harness. She also highlighted that a change of mentality is needed in Spain towards a more results-based evaluation of achievements and productivity, which would help flexible hours and work-family balance, adding that both men and women should be working towards this.
Eva Levy said she believes that it is only work-life balance that prevents women from realising the true value of their work and noted with regret their slow progress in Spain, which in her opinion is due to the lack of civil association efforts. She argued that women’s empowerment is no longer a joint struggle and there is no cooperation on transversal causes.
To sum up, although some progress has been made, there are still many challenges ahead for women, and events such as this Dialogue, enriched by the different perspectives of India’s and Spain’s societies, can help generate further progress still.
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