Recognizing the role of women

Last March, the country celebrated the National Women’s Month with the theme “We Make Change Work for Women.” The month-long celebration, which is part of the worldwide observance of International Women’s Day,  aims to empower women and enable them to confidently engage with appropriate institutions and ensure that they contribute to, and benefit from, development and changes.

A key component is to drive awareness about the need to put into place functional mechanisms and implementing programs and services that address strategic gender needs of women, whose contribution should always be recognized and celebrated not just on a particular month or day.

The Philippine Embassy in Washington, DC continually does its part in recognizing the role of women through various activities and events. The embassy partnered with the Filipino Young Professionals of Washington, DC (FYP-DC) to host a panel discussion titled “Women in Creative Industries.”

Held at the Chancery Annex Building, the activity brought together three Filipino-American women engaged in the creative sector who shared their experiences and insights on the challenges faced by women engaged in creative industries as well as the positive changes that are happening.

The panel discussion on ‘Women in Creative Industries’ with NPR associate producer Ashley Westerman, Pattie Umali, Josie Thompson and Philippine Embassy Gender and Development officer Darell Artates.

Leading the discussion were Josie Thompson, a self-employed graphic designer and partner of Support for Success; Ashley Westerman, associate producer of Morning Edition at National Public Radio and a two-time reporting fellow with the International Center for Journalists; and Pattie Umali, an international education practitioner and founder of InterIntellectus NFP, a non-profit organization that aims to prepare individuals for global citizenship and the international workplace through technology, media and gaming. The discussion was moderated by Vice Consul Darell Artates, the Philippine Embassy’s Gender and Development officer.

Umali shared her thoughts on having male “allies” in the creative industries, saying that there are a lot of game developers (who are gamers themselves) that feel like social outcasts. “A lot of gamers enjoy identifying with the social outliers that are in character in the games,” Umali disclosed, adding that there are now a lot of male game developers who are “coming around and are starting to recognize that females should be recognized and appreciated.”

The Philippines certainly considers the creative sector as a key piece of sustainable, equitable and inclusive development, and the panel discussion was a great way to gain understanding on what needs to be done in order to achieve gender balance and inclusiveness in the creative industry. The panelists shared how different expectations for men and women affected them in their chosen professions — with stereotyping, compensation gaps, and barriers to reaching leadership roles as only some of the gender-related issues and challenges that they have encountered in the workplace.

As part of the celebrations, the Philippine Embassy also set up a special passport encoding station for female applicants, in line with the government’s “Serbisyo Para Kay Juana” initiative.

A special lane for women applicants was set up at the Consular Section of the Philippine Embassy in celebration of International Women’s Day.