“Mainstreaming Gender Equality”.

 I have changed my plans: I will now blog after a year's break. I have realized that it has affected my flow of writing and abstaining from writing is making me dull. 

Australia Awards – South Asia and Mongolia hosted 2024 Scholars Forum from 26-27 November 2024 in capital of Australia, Canberra. This forum brought together scholars from various universities from every nook and corner of Australia, and we networked with one another. There were students with astonishing achievements and few that I networked were social activists, writers, entrepreneurs and policy makers in their nations. Meeting these trailblazers in person not only broadened my horizon of understanding their approaches to change, but also inspired me to work harder.

I was very much touched, and my eyes were kind of teary, when I heard one of the speakers deliver her speech on domestic violence, being the first one to achieve higher education and above all, beating cancer. It was awe inspiring how a woman, from a challenged society achieved so much in short span of time.

Towards the end of the forum, we were asked to incorporate gender equality principles into our Development Impact and Linkages Plans, also known as DILP. DILP is a crucial document for all the Awardees, for this is the very basis for which one is awarded this prestigious scholarship – Australia Awards Scholarships.

My takeaway from the session was a paradigm shift in my thought process. To be honest, in my DILP, I had not ticked Gender Equality as one of the impacts that I would pursue, for I never understood Gender Equality. Coming from Bhutan, where women inherit heirlooms, I always thought that Gender Equality was a something that was not our problem. I was so wrong.

My reflection from the session is that I did not understand Gender Equality. Women perse, suffer disadvantageous circumstances after they hit the age of 20 till 65, and they have to forgo various opportunities for they have to look after their families, children and undergo drastic changes. Furthermore, one key essential point I learned was what we, men, can do to uplift women and support Gender Equality. I have attached what I noted during the session, which in nutshell means that we men just must be supportive, must admit if we do not understand the context and even if we are aware, we need to ACT to impact. It’s okay to admit if you don’t understand Gender Equality, and I am learning to understand the essence and requirement of Gender Equality.

The panel discussions organized had members from Prime Minister’s Office, DFAT, researchers, advocates and activists of Gender Justices. One such panel member was Asha Clementi, founder of “Girls run the world”, who advocates empowering and inspiring young women to pursue leadership in diplomacy, that more women should participate in senior roles in diplomatic community. Maybe, if there were more women politicians, we wouldn’t have many wars that we see today in the world.

Nevertheless, it made me ponder upon inclusivity in my own profession. In my experience at various organizations in the field of civil engineering, we seldom see women take up our profession. Those who do, are rarely placed at site and I always felt that it was difficult for women to participate in field jobs. But never did it occur to me, that had these sites been made safe for women, they would have participated, and then I realized that there were few sites in Bhutan where men and women worked together. Hence, for better participation of women civil engineers at construction sites, we just need to establish better site camps, better toilets and most of all, assure that it is safe. It always must be safe, for women are always the victims of any calamities, wars or any crisis, and this is the exact area where we men should support.

One of the speakers who had three engineering degrees, Mr. Troy Roderick, Diversity Equity and Inclusion specialist, changed the way I thought about climate change. He in his simple terms explained that to curb the detrimental issues of climate change, education played a pivotal role. But why education? He explained that only through education we can learn to communicate, and through communication we can respond to challenges. He further explained how education can only be effective and impactful if we educate women. Like it is said, educate a man, and you educate half of a family, educate a woman, and you educate the entire family.