The future of Feminism

Last week, March 8, was the International Day of Women. This was proclaimed by the United Nations in 1975 as a way of recognizing and celebrating the role of women in society. The annual celebrations are meant to highlight the progress of women’s achievements in promoting their advocacies of women’s rights on the basis of equality of the sexes. There were marches, rallies, and events all over the world particularly in Europe and the US, but mostly in democratic countries. International news highlighted the demand of the US Women’s soccer team for equal pay and benefits as the men’s team, a number of high-profile sexual harassment cases, and the rising or decreasing proportion of women in positions of power in governments and businesses.

Feminism is a political, social, and ideological movement to define, establish and achieve personal, economic, social, and political equality of the sexes. Women have always been the aggrieved sex because they were accorded the secondary or lesser role in most societies, except for the very few aboriginal matriarchal societies. With the growing prominence of the Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual (LGBT) community, feminism may include them as they are also for the equality of the sexes.

Over the years, the number of women leaders all over the world has grown but it is still a small group. A high of 11% of the world’s top corporate jobs were held by women in the good years but there hasn’t been much growth --there was even decline-- in some years. Seventy world leaders were women from 1966 up to 2014, but they governed for lesser number of years than men, and at best only 20% of world political leaders are women. Moreover, only 20% of landowners all over the world are women. These are aggregate/average figures so it is possible that the percentages of women in power in politics and business are better in some countries like the Philippines and other Asian countries which do not have ingrained biases with women; but on the whole the 20% seem to be the ceiling that has to be broken by women.

The changing landscape/environment in business and politics and the advancement in technologies will promote the increase of women in power. Positions of power now really need more brain power and character than physical power. Leadership will need more soft skills on top of competence. The advances in the Information and Communications technologies demand more transparency and accountability of the leaders. So, we have Kylie Jenner becoming the youngest billionaire replacing Zuckerberg, Angela Merkel holding on as German prime minister past her prime, British Prime Minister Teresa May tenaciously fighting for an orderly “Brexit”, a group of young women simultaneously getting elected to the US Congress last year, and the women in Saudi Arabia finally being allowed to drive motor vehicles.

On a personal level, I have seen how the role of women in my grandfather’s days has changed to a more equitable role during my father’s time and in my time. My mother and my sisters are strong personalities and achievers and are treated equally as men. In the business organizations I’ve worked in, the women were always treated and compensated as equals. In our Financial Executives association (FINEX), I credited the women members and leaders for the success of the organization. I also noticed in my lectures to students taking up Accounting and Finance there is a 65/35 proportion of women over men taking up the courses.

The march of Feminism or the women’s movement is inevitable and the 20% ceiling is just a temporary pause caused by the business cycle and the possibly short-lived populist/authoritarian drift of some countries and governments. Feminism will grow and thrive along with liberal democratic governance.