From the history of Babel, humanity divided them based on racial and ethnic identity. Every ethnic group wants consolidation and believes in expansion, reservation, and glorification. They want to propagate their identity and ideology. This identity could also be the sexual identity as women and men are considered as two different race.
The term leadership talks about the capability of an individual within or beyond the racial identity. Everyone has the right to become a good leader it doesn’t matter what is the race or sex of the leader. Especially in the case of women or female leader there should not be any racial differences, because of their sex. But in real picture we can see the differences; we can give enormous examples regarding that. We can also pictures’ the American presidential election as an example. It was assuming that this election is going to break the traditional glass ceiling in United States. Of course other political reasons are also there but many feminist believes another strong reason of Hilary Clinton’s defeat in the election is stereotypes about the leadership meaning.
If we consider the South Asian region we can find that Gender played a vital role deciding the place of individuals in family as well as in the institutions. It is tough to break the existing glass ceiling in institutions and stereotypes from the patriarchic society. And in Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia we can hardly find any women leader.
So we can say that there is a complexity between racism and leadership, especially when it comes about women leadership.
The way forward:
Women’s rights are human rights that cover every spheres of life including health, education, economic well-being, political participation and freedom from violence, among several others. Women are entitled to the equal enjoyment of all of their human rights and to be free from all kinds of discrimination and this is the fundamental key to achieve human rights, peace and security, and sustainable development. In Asia the picture of gender based racism is acute in nature. Here are some suggestions that would help to preserve the equality and reduce the gender disparity in leadership.
- Enhancing the application of laws to decrease the pay gap based on gender.
- Workplace discrimination should be reduced.
- Women political participation should be encouraged.
- Say no to stereotypes.
- Leadership trainings should be organized for women.
- Initiate Equal opportunities for women.
- Increasing the payment negotiation skill of women through workshops and social awareness programs.
- International and regional organizational work should be enhanced and co-operated with the governmental efforts to reduce the stigma of gender based racism in leadership.
> Alma Siddiqua
