Heidelberg International Professional Women's Forum

2017 HIP international women's day

International Women’s day with HIP in Heidelberg

The official International Women’s Day theme 2017 was

#BeBoldForChange

At HIP we met on Wednesday March 8th to celebrate the day and to reflect on:

  • Where are we now?
  • What’s being done by the system?
  • What can we as individuals do to impact this equation?

We had a full house for the panel discussion. After a brief run through of some basic statistics to set the stage, our speakers shared their perspective of what is actually happening with gender equality in the region. Whether from the sciences, academia, the corporate world or the entrepreneurial angle there remains a huge gap to close to achieve parity in the world of work. So now what?

Quotas and having role models have been shown to be effective when properly employed.

But what can we do about it?

As the discussion turned to brainstorming ideas of being bold and searching for what we as individuals could be doing to move things along there seemed to be hesitation.  Little by little some ideas emerged including: mentoring another woman, creating groups to support one another, and examining our own biases via the Harvard Business School Implicit Association Test (IAT).

None-the-less this is a sign that our engagement for women’s development is not finished.  We at HIP need to keep the discussion alive and growing to speed up change and advance our own empowerment.

 

Picture by Edu Lauton on Unsplash.com, Creative Commons Zero lincence