#LeadLikeHer Part 02

In a changing world where women demand equality and expect to be treated no less than their male counterparts and want to be respected for their skill, talent, knowledge, and the value they put to their work.

But women go unnoticed, unheard and un-celebrated, lost in the fine print or just omitted in history. This women’s history month we celebrate women irrespective of their caste, creed, race, religion, fields, nationality, just viewing them and their achievements as big or small as they are, their roles as big or small played.

Whether be it scientists like Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Jane Goodall, or authors like Maya Angelou, Virginia Woolf, or any woman for that matter, who embodied the spirit of feminism and achieved great things.

French philosopher - writer Simone de Beauvoir (image to the right) played a vital role in modern feminism, by untiringly criticizing the patriarchal system. She authored a book “The Second Sex”, in which she showed how men consistently denied women’s identity, drawing on history, art and psychology. Despite the sharp criticism and hate campaigns it attracted , it became a seminal text in feminism.

Susan Brownell Anthony was one of the foremost leaders of the American suffragist movement and the anti-slavery movement. She organised numerous campaigns and lectures on the issue all over the country. She was instrumental in forming the Women’s Loyal National League, which supported the policies of President Abraham Lincoln. She, along with fifteen other women, voted in the presidential election of 1872, for which she was arrested and convicted. She also co-authored three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage. She was the first real woman to be depicted on a U.S coin.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815– 1902) was one of the prominent figures in the early feminist movement in America. She was a friend of Susan B. Anthony, with whom she co-authored History of Woman Suffrage. At the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848, Stanton conceived the Declaration of Sentiments, which went on to be one of the seminal texts in the women’s rights movement. She served as the president of the National Woman Suffrage Association for eight years and was the author of The Woman’s Bible (1895) and an autobiography, Eighty Years and More (1898).

Women in recent times like Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Indira Nooyi, Sheryl Sandberg, Jacinda Adern, Sanna Marin, Alice Walker, Malala Yousafzai, Christina Koch, Dr. Swati Mohan, and million others have come to be the best in what they do and have over come gazillion gender stereotypes put on the them, and yet proven to be the best and continue to lead the hopes of millions of girls who aspire to be like them everyday.

Women in leadership roles not only inspire millions and pave the way for fellow women but also have to be at the top of the game, work harder, staying at the top of the mountain of success comes with utmost hard work, perseverance and professionalism, women in leadership positions exemplify these value and continue to do all of it with sheer effortlessness and elegance.

Blog By Pranavi. C. S

Research By Riva Chauhan