I Hope

So Hillary Clinton became the first woman nominee for the presidential election. So what if it took 240 years of a nation’s history to recognize that a woman is capable of handling a country’s affairs. So what if she had to wait for eight years after losing the race to a black candidate? So what if women in America had to go through suffrage movement to get the right to vote?

Hilary Clinton linked this to achievement to struggle for women’s right. I wonder if it is going to change anything or empower women of colour in America? She has been a champion of women rights and gender equality. How much she can achieve that as the head of state remains to be seen. But the thing that made me wonder was why it took so long for a woman to get the nomination for the country’s highest job in a country where the literacy rate is almost 100 percent?

A country that boasts of democracy, which propagates human rights and interferes in every nation’s affair when it sees women rights being violated, could not look into its own backyard? A country where women still earn 65 cents of each dollar earned by their male counterparts. It’s a man’s world we are told. But who made it so?

India, a poor country y American standards, though now they seem to be backtracking on that, had a woman prime minister in sixties. That she was the daughter of the prime minister and was trained by him was a plus point. But then she held the post for 18 years. Today, in India, 8 percent of top 50 CEOs are women. World wide, women make 40 percent of the workforce and only 10 percent hold the top jobs. Mind you most of these women are from western countries.

In comparison, in India, women participation in the workforce is very low. Still we have Aisha de Sequeira, MD and head, investment banking, Morgan and Stanley India, we have Indira Nooyi, Head of Pepsi, Archana Bhargava, Chairman and Managing director, United bank Of India, Chanda Kochhar, MD and Ceo, ICICI Bank, Renu Sud Karnad, managing Director, HDFC. The list is long but I have sighted a few examples specifically more from the banking and industry sectors, which were, hitherto, considered male professions.

I really hope Hilary Clinton wins. Even if she is not able to do something special for women, especially women of colour, she is inclusive of all races and religions. America under the buffoon Donald Trump will be even less attractive for people of diversity.

I salute you Hilary and pray that you win. There is hope that you will usher in a new era of equality in real terms.

So be it !!!