Engage, Empower and Elevate are the three important steps to women empowerment. Once women realise their potential, they need to engage with other women and make them realise their potentials. Altogether, women with an eye on achieving their dreams and will to use their agency and voice can envision an elevated stage of voice, freedom and empowerment.
Embarking upon a similar process of women empowerment, Roma Datta Chobey, Director - Travel, BFSI, Classifieds, Gaming, Telco & Payments at Google shared her experience and insights on how women can support and empower each other. She was in conversation with Shaili Chopra, Founder, SheThePeople.TV. Digital Women Awards (DWA), a day that witnesses the fabulous enterprises of women with voice and vision, could not have a better start than a conversation on how women can be empowered in the country though Digitalisation and Internet.
“Women need to manage their perceptions and deal with these prejudices cautiously to elevate themselves and become successful.”
Power of Many Vs Power Of One
Working with Google, the main aim of Roma has been to create a digital platform where a woman can engage and empower themselves. Counting on the various initiatives that Google has taken to facilitate the empowerment of woman, Roma talks about Internet Saathi. It was an initiative that began in 2015 with the aim to bring more women to the digital platform and hence bridges the gender gap in the online world.
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Besides Internet Saathi, she also threw light upon many different initiatives that have favoured women to gain knowledge about the online and digital world and simultaneously realise their entrepreneurial goals.
To engage with others, women first need to be outspoken
The first step towards engaging with other women is for a successful woman to be able to recognise themselves and speak about it without hesitation. As Shaili said:
As inspiring leaders, one of the things we like to do is to leverage our network. Women now are more outspoken and confident about their achievements. But how much should a woman push the networking so that they can be confident to talk about themselves without undermining any achievement and encouraging other women simultaneously?
Besides Internet Saathi, she also threw light upon many different initiatives that have favoured women to gain knowledge about the online and digital world and simultaneously realise their entrepreneurial goals.
Roma rightly said, “It is a known fact that women often under-represent themselves. Women should never hold themselves back. They should engage, talk with people from different sectors, look for mentors and promote themselves in a systematic way. There are many organisations and platforms that allow and guide women to speak about their journeys and success stories. Women should definitely use them to promote themselves and elevate other women.”
Even if women come out to speak and perform their best, they often face prejudices and biases that scale them down. About this Roma said, “Women need to manage their perceptions and deal with these prejudices cautiously to elevate themselves and become successful.”
The three important lessons for an inclusive, engaging and elevating society
Being a part of Google and its initiatives to empower women and men, Roma shared some really valuable lessons from her experience. These lessons not only helped her in the business world but also framed an empowered perspective towards gender and life. She said, “The first lesson I learnt is that we should let our work speak for themselves. I don't want to be called a woman leader, but an industry leader. I like to keep the focus just on my work.”
“The second lesson is the power of women helping and reaching out to other women. Women are actively leaning in and coming together to help other women. And the third lesson I learnt from Google is that nothing can be done in isolation. Every initiative requires the equal involvement of both men and woman.”
“The first lesson I learnt is that we should let our work speak for themselves. I don't want to be called a woman leader, but an industry leader. I like to keep the focus just on my work.”
With these insights on how women should engage with other women and how they can empower other women, the panel drove towards the end. Indeed, as Shaili Chopra said, it is a myth that woman do not help each other.
Picture Credit: Twitter
Rudrani Kumari is an intern with SheThePoeple.TV
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