British Asian International Women's Day debate at House of Commons

Happy International Women’s Day (IWD)! 

The first IWD was celebrated in 1911, more than 100 years ago. It is remarkable then, that we are still fighting for equal and in many cases, basic human rights for women around the world.

For south Asian women, as women of colour, the intersectionality of issues makes it a harder, murkier battle. Stereotyping and racial bias in the workplace mean our paths are harder, our disadvantages greater and our failures expected yet not accepted.

Which is why it was so exciting for British Asian Women’s Magazine to receive an invite to a debate on this year’s IWD theme, Each for Equal, at the House of Commons. Organised by Lord Popat, a British accountant, businessman and the first Gujarati to represent the Conservative party in the upper house, the debate featured 20 speakers of prominence. Refreshingly, the vast majority were women and delightfully, most of them were south Asian. 

The range of speakers was diverse from Conservative party candidate for London Mayor, Shaun Bailey to Nour Shaker Fayad, a transgender individual and CIO Advisory and Senior Manager at KPMG. Each person shared personal anecdotes from their lives and careers, how they overcame some of the struggles they faced, their experience of sexism, which feminist issues in particular they wanted to draw attention to and action points they wanted the audience to follow to bring about change in those issues. 

Although each talk was eye-opening and motivating, we were particularly inspired by the words of 16-year old Founder of social change and communications organisation, Stolen Dreams; Ishaan Shah, Instagram Influencer and founder of non-profit Post For Change; Diipa Büller-Khosla and founder and director of Shiva Foundation, a corporate that aims to tackle and prevent human trafficking and modern slavery; Meenal Sachdev.

As a teenage boy still at school and the youngest speaker of the day, Ishaan Shah was a revelation. His impassioned speech about how toxic masculinity harms and silences young and impressionable boys and girls and forces them to hold themselves back, challenged parents, teachers and guardians to raise their sons in the same way they raise their daughters, to discuss consent with boys, to encourage young men to have female role models and be inspired by them and to allow their daughters to be free to be themselves and learn and explore just as their sons do. 

But feminism is not just for those privileged enough to be able to dream, work, inspire and lead full lives, never mind even entertaining the idea of being able to raise their sons differently. It is also for women around the world fighting for far more basic human rights. Like the harassed, improvised and maltreated women working in brothals in New Dehli that Meenal Sachdev spoke of, pleading that even as we fight our own battles, we do not forget about them.

Although there is much to change and it can seem daunting, Diipa Büller-Khosla’s speech was a good reminder that we can begin with small steps, like sharing our journeys, insecurities and struggles to help validate and comfort other women. It is only looking at the power we yield within our little worlds that we can see where we can take action and in that way create splashes that will one day lead to waves of change.