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KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — In many parts of the world, female leaders still struggle to gain equal footing with their male counterparts despite their merits.
Realising the need for allies and support to help achieve a level playing field, the “Rise: Future Female Leaders Forum” virtual event will host informative sessions with prominent leaders and activists — both local and international — who will share personal experiences and discuss possible solutions to the issue.
According to Izzana Salleh, president and chief executive officer of Girls for Girls International that is organising the event, the forum will broach a dozen distinct topics.
“These are centred around conversations which are really important in gender equality and, of course, sexual harassment is one of them. Rise, as an entity and also the NGO behind it, we are not looking at changing policy directly; our goal is really about shifting the mindset of the people.
“However, since our stakeholders are government players, hopefully, through the report that we will be sending in, it can positively influence those bills,” Izzana told Malay Mail.
Aside from organising the event in partnership with MyProdigy Global and others, Izzana’s group will also provide content for the forum known informally as Rise 2021.
Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will launch the forum at 9am on March 13.
According to Izzana, the intended audience of the forum includes youth of both genders, particularly those struggling to find their place in the modern world.
“Our goal really is to ignite, inspire and invigorate the minds of young leaders, so they can rise to their full potential and be the change that they wish to see and we, the organisers, truly believe in the power of young women and girls to change the world.
“So we have various types of leaders; as mentioned before, we have local and international ones and we also have very seasoned experienced leaders and we also have very young leaders as well.
“We organised them in that way intentionally, because we wanted to ensure that we are inclusive in sharing the experiences, whether it was age, whether it was gender, race or nationality,” Izzana added.
She explained that the forum aims to show that there are common pitfalls when people try to rise into leadership, such as the so-called “impostor” syndrome, which she lamented has been debilitating to many women since they were young.
The psychological syndrome is when individuals question their own skills, abilities and accomplishments regardless of their actual competence, causing even the highly qualified and exceptionally talented to see themselves as “frauds”.
“Or in the journey of understanding gender equality from a male perspective, for example, or trying to be able to assess the importance and understanding the framework of communications and negotiations. There are so many things we can learn from each other,” she added.
The forum will also delve into larger mental health issues through its “Sustainable Mental Health in Leadership” session, featuring prominent leaders such as Tengku Puteri Iman Afzan Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al Mustafa Billah Shah, the eldest daughter of Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah.
Tengku Puteri Iman became in 2019 the royal patron of the Mental Illness Awareness and Support Association (Miasa).
Other speakers include Malaysia’s squash icon, Datuk Nicol Ann David, as well as UK-based surgeon Dr Nur Amalina Che Bakri, who shot to prominence by scoring a record 17 A’s in the 2004 SPM examination.
Izzana explained that the importance of sustainable mental health for leadership roles was a topic the organisers were especially keen to see discussed.
“So, one thing that we have put together is that we have made sure that the ladies here are not exactly technical people because we are not looking for technical conversations.
“We are looking for achievers, especially from Datuk Nicol’s perspective. We want someone who is a person, a human who has achieved so much. What was her journey like in maintaining her mental health so that she can become a leader in her industry? And her kind of sustainable mental health is a long-term game because it also affects her mental and physical strength. So we want to dig deep and unpack her journey. How does she maintain the strength?
“During our briefing with her, we understand that she is going to be candid about how she handles it,” Izzana added.
The forum would also be discussing male positivity and how it is important to have men of all ages join the cause.
Izzana said that the topic was important as women empowerment messages must transcend all genders to effect change in society.
“Over the many years of doing women empowerment work through NGOs and many other activities, I grew quite tired of dealing or preaching to the choir, as they say. Where we deal with just women, we are talking about empowering women, women, women, women and girls only. But the thing is, we don’t live in an ecosystem with just women and girls.
“Our ecosystem consists of men and boys and more so how do we change an entire gender climate if we are not also addressing the men in this conversation?” she said.
Izzana stressed that the forum is not meant “to bash men”, which was why the language and phrasing were specifically chosen to convey the sentiment of inclusivity.
“We are using terms like positive masculinity, as opposed to talking about toxic masculinity because we want to be as solution driven as possible. How to raise confident men in an equitable world, and we are going to talk about why this is important for male allies and fathers of daughters,” she added.
Izzana said it is highly important to absorb men into the discussions to shift their perspective on the challenges faced by women.
“So how do we bring all of us aligned? We need to really talk to them, not in a condescending way, because we are all in this together. We have to be, we have no choice,” she said, adding 40 per cent of speakers at the event will be men.