Bringing one of Citizen Femme’s popular editorial columns – The Female Gaze – to life, we hosted a powerful live panel talk with distinguished female trailblazers who are actively reshaping the world.
Hosted by CF’s founder Sheena Bhattessa and in front of a sold-out audience at the AllBright Townhouse, we spoke to Yalda Hakim (presenter: BBC News, Sky News), Sara Bowcutt (managing director: Women for Women International UK), and Orlagh McCloskey (co-founder: RIXO) about women in the world today.
CF’s editorially led Female Gaze column is a place to elevate female empowerment, to celebrate womanhood, and to listen to those changing the world – and in this thought-provoking live edition, we continued the discussion with our CF readers and community.
We spoke about navigating career paths as women, including the advances and roadblocks we face; how the wants and dreams of women worldwide are the same; and about how, as global women, we’re all one – before moving on to a conversation about what we need to do to ensure all women, everywhere, are seen and heard.
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“I often find that the aspirations of women in places like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq are exactly the same as women in London, New York and Sydney,” Yalda asserted, with Sara Bowcutt sharing how women worldwide share similar hopes, desires and problems, stating that in her experience, “many women around the world have the same issues as we do”.
Speaking to how we can work together to support women in every country, making sure we’re all seen, heard and visible, Yalda expressed that we need to “ensure there are more female voices in news rooms, in board rooms, in these kinds of industries”.
“It’s about community and sisterhood; it’s about supporting other women,” Sarah affirmed.
The audience for our The Female Gaze Live event included female leaders from companies including Deliveroo, Google and the AllBright community.
In our editorial The Female Gaze column, we’ve spoken to inspirational trailblazers including Shiza Shahid, activist and entrepreneur; Kulsum Shadab Wahab, founder of Ara Lumiere and the Hothur Foundation, which works to empower acid attack survivors; Alice Morrison, BBC presenter and adventurer; Sarah Bowcutt, managing director of Women for Women International UK; Maryam Montague, humanitarian, hotelier and designer – among many others.
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