The Winding Road to Women’s Empowerment

  • June 13, 2019
  • Patricia Osoko

The Winding Road to Women’s Empowerment

Clicking through the channels the other day, I happened across the movie “The Battle of the Sexes.” The hairstyles, clothes and cars brought me back to my childhood. But what struck me the most were the words being used. Girls were “chicks,” women were “broads” or “girls” and racial references were unrepeatable. Men were “macho” and many labeled themselves as “male chauvinist pigs” with pride. And, because the movie was sponsored by Virginia Slims, I was reminded of the slogan from the cigarette ads: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

When I went to law school, women represented about half of my class. The gold medalist in my year was a woman, and we mooted and debated and gave advice in the student clinics right alongside our male colleagues. I loved law school and the power of legal knowledge and discipline.

When we graduated, my female colleagues and I articled, got jobs and contributed to the profession.  Many of these women now run law firms, work in senior government positions, sit on the bench and on boards, and are corporate leaders. We support ourselves and our families, and although we still don’t make as much money as our male colleagues, overall, we’ve made a lot of progress.

So I was completely taken aback during an interaction I had in India last year. Between business meetings, I went to an incredible underground shrine. I was enjoying the cool temperature and tranquility when a family approached me to ask if they could have their picture taken with me.

I was curious: why would anyone want their picture taken with me, a stranger? This family—grandmother, mother, sister, daughters and one young son—told me they had never seen a woman in a business suit.

They wanted to know all about me, what I was doing in southern India, and about my husband and two sons. They said they had never imagined that a woman could be a business person and lawyer, that she could travel away from her family for work, or that she could represent an international company in a foreign land. The conversation touched me because I had struggled to get ahead for many years and did not realize how far I had come.

Now I live and work in Mexico City. Because the population here is more homogeneous than in Canada, most diversity initiatives are focused on women’s equality—and we have a way to go. A woman with postsecondary education in Mexico can expect to get paid 66% of what a man earns, 8% lower than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development average. In 2015, women held only 5.7% of positions on major corporate boards in Mexico, well below the global average of 14.7%.

Yet, there are some encouraging signs. Women are assuming positions of authority in government, and Mexico is now ranked fourth globally for representation of women in legislature. The mayor of Mexico City, one of the most important political positions in the country, is a woman. In my office, half of us are women.

Here, like in Canada, we still have work to do to make sure we promote women, achieve pay equity and ensure underrepresented groups have a chance to succeed, among other things. However, when I consider what it was like in the seventies, and I reflect on that day in India, I am optimistic because “we’ve come a long way, baby.”

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of her employer.

Patricia Osoko is the Legal Director for ATCO México, where she supports operations in energy infrastructure and modular construction, as well as new growth opportunities. When she is not busy learning Spanish and dodging Mexico City traffic, Patricia leads Silver Birch Innovations, where she studies and implements innovation and cultural transformation through digital reinvention, policy and process restructuring. Connect with her on LinkedIn.