Women in society - Quo vadis?

I'm honoured to have had received a leadership prize given during the Finmedia Gala - Women who change Romania. The media outlet does a tremendous job in promoting specialists in all walks of life. I'm proud to be among so many remarkable professionals who move the needle in management and contribute to a better tomorrow. I'm standing on the shoulders of plenty outstanding persons - friends & family, colleagues and managers.

Yet, I'm a long-term advocate of advancing the topic of women in leadership in general, and technology in particular. From this position, I must emphasis a couple of things that I seem to find more and more outdated or that I thought, that us, as society, moved on from. I encounter each time at events dedicated to women a level of discussion that still remains in the surface of things, an accent on the "cuteness" of women, sexist speeches, unrealistic claims and a privileged way of looking at the topic. I wish I would hear more speeches with substances, that tackle the structural issues, that promote debate and encourage a realistic discussion about the women in society. 

Just to name a few I'm curious about:

• We are 7.7 billion people on the planet and half of us are women. Yet, when we have a look at the boardrooms, head of states, C-suite executive, high-ranking officials/professionls the vast majority is white male. Why? Mrs. Anca Dragu received a prize during the same ceremony. Although in her acceptance speech she said she is an advocate of women in politics, her political party does not have any woman in the government. Why? How is she is exactly supporting women? What are we exactly doing to make things better?
• Based on the reports from Global Media Monitoring, realised every 5 years from 1995, women are only 1 in 3 represented in print and broadcast and in 2020, only 1 in 3 specialists invited to share about #Covid is a woman. Why
• How are we measuring the unpaid work women do? At a global level, women do 75% of the unpaid work. They allocate b/t 3 to 6 hours/day for this type of work compared to men that allocate b/t 30 min and 2 h. Why? What are we exactly doing to make things better?
• Yentl Syndrome - in the 1983 movie - Yentl, Barbara Streisand is playing the role of Jew woman who disguises herself in a man to get an education. It has become a syndrome in medicine. This describes the phenomenon whereby women are misdiagnosed and poorly treated unless their symptoms or diseases conform to the if men. This can prove fatal. Why did you reach such situation?
• 40% of the women in technology quit their job after 10 careers of career compared to 17% of men. They leave because of workplace conditions, undermining behaviour from managers and because they are repeatedly passed up for promotion and had their projects dismissed. What are we exactly doing to make things better?

As I said in my concluding speech at the Gala, I challenge everyone holding a position of power, woman or man, to take at least one woman as her/his mentee. If this single step is taken, we won’t find an overnight solution to the aforementioned problems. But we are going to move towards a direction where we are not biased, privileged or unequal.