In collaboration with PASSIONS, VOICE OF ASIA is proud to present timeless articles from the archives, reproduced digitally for your reading pleasure. Originally reproduced in PASSIONS Volume 46 in 2012, we present a keynote address delivered by VOICE OF ASIA’s CEO, Datuk Beatrice Nirmala, as one of the speakers at the 2nd Annual Women in Leadership forum in Malaysia.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,
The biggest problem women have ever faced throughout history is that we have always believed what we are told. From time immemorial we have been told that we are not good enough, clever enough, strong enough, wilful enough, demure enough, modest enough, emotionally balanced enough… that we can’t handle pressure, that our moods dictate our actions and all that blah.
My point today, ladies and gentlemen, is to tell you that you don’t have to believe everything you are told. Believe only in what you want to believe because that truth will set you free to fly as high as you ever can fly, knowing that the only thing that can bring you down is the limitation that your mind sets on yourself.
I come from a very inhibited family where they told you a lot of what an ‘ideal’ woman should be. I did not believe them because I knew better. I was inspired by giants before my time. Giants who took the status quo imposed on them and threw it away with a mighty shrug, chipping away at the glass ceiling one by one until in a not too far away past, it was forever shattered. Paving the way for women like us to do whatever we want.
Every time I started to feel small, embittered or felt a need to conform to the rules of societal norms that bind my ethnic background, I thought of the women I am going to talk to you about today and how much harder life must have been for them when they were blazing through new frontiers, and how much we have to be thankful to them for setting us free. This century women surge forward in every field, every industry, every level of hierarchy in the corporate structure and we do this today because we have stood on the shoulders of giants. Our success today is a culmination of every little success big and small won in many heartwrenching battles along the way…
… and we have come a long way.
Politics
Up till the early 20th century, most women around the world were not allowed to vote. Then in 1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the first woman head of government as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, a post for which she would receive four mandates.
Then in 1966 Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister of India. During her two terms she initiated India’s nuclear programme and won a war with Pakistan. She was credited with improving relations with China and the Soviet Union, and for India’s then emphasis on science and technology which has led it to the tremendous economic success it enjoys today.
In 1973 Golda Meir, as Prime Minister, led Israel to victory over the combined Arab armies of Syria, Iraq and Egypt, showing acute military strategy. She was famously referred to as ‘the only one with balls in the Israeli cabinet.’
Let’s not forget Margaret Thatcher while we are at it – arguably one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century. She transformed Britain from being the sick man of Europe in 1979 into a dynamic economy. She introduced concepts such as monetarism, privatisation. She is credited with reducing the power of unions, increasing home ownership, and reducing the role of government in business affairs. This transformed the culture of Great Britain to one that had more of an entrepreneurial spirit.
Closer to home we have Corazon Aquino who led the People Power Revolution that toppled the dictatorial Marcos regime, and Benazir Bhutto, who became the first woman head of government in a Muslim country in 1988. An economist by training, she pursued an economic policy of privatisation and expanded Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
There is no stopping women in high level politics anymore – we have had 68 Head of Governments from 1960 till now. As I speak 14 countries out of 194 countries are run by women. It’s only 7%, but it is a huge step for a woman to lead a country when just about 90 years ago she could not even vote.
“If I get a chance to run this country, it should be because I am the best person for the job. Period. It should never be on the account that I was a statistical figure, completing a given quota. That is belittling to either a woman or a man.”
Women like these inspire other women. Being the head of government is the highest job you can aspire to be. It’s simple logic… if they can do it, why not I? Young girls grow up having an alternative role model to follow… they don’t need to be the First Lady anymore, they can just run right up and be the President, if they are the best person for the job. Think also Christine Lagaarde, voted the Best Finance Minister of the Eurozone and now the first woman to run the International Monetary Fund. Finance used to be a male dominion. One more glass ceiling shattered into oblivion.
Science
Not too long ago, when I was ten years old, I was told that women don’t have the aptitude for science and maths and that boys are naturally cleverer in that field. So I graduated with 2nd class Honours in Physics to prove to myself more than anyone else than I can do it. You see, a brain is a brain is a brain.
At the time of writing, a woman physicist has stopped light in her lab at Harvard, another woman runs the linear accelarator at Stanford, a woman discovered the first evidence for dark matter, a woman found the top quark… the list goes on. One of the greatest scientific minds of this century belonged to Marie Curie who won two Nobel Prizes for two different fields – Physics and Chemistry. Her discovery of radiation, radium and polonium has resulted in the advent of radiotheraphy, X-rays, imaging machines and other forms of medical technologies that have saved millions of lives since then.
But history has not always been kind to women scientists, and many in the past had the Nobel Prize denied them because they were women. I think they deserve a mention here today.
Lisa Meitner, born 1878, escaped from the Nazis to Sweden where she carried out the key calculations that led to the discovery of nuclear fission. Her collaborater Otto Hahn, was the SOLE recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work in 1944.
Emmy Noether, born 1882, devised a mathematical principle called Noether’s Theorem which became a foundation stone of quantum physics. Her calculations helped Einstein formulate his general theory of relativity. He admitted, “It is really through her that I have become competent in the subject.”
Frieda Robbins, born 1893, discovered that a diet rich in liver cured anaemia in dogs which led directly to a cure for anaemia in humans. Although she co-authored numerous papers with George Whipple on this, it was he who was honoured with the 1934 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, born 1900 proposed in 1925 in her PhD thesis that all stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium. Astronomers dismissed her observations until four years later when they were confirmed by a man. She was the first woman to become a professor of science at Harvard.
Wu Chien Shiung, born 1912, overthrew with her colleagues a principle previously considered immutable in physics – that nature does not distinguish between left and right. She found this rule did not hold true for interactions between subatomic particles involving the weak force. The Nobel Prize was awarded only to her two male colleagues.
Rosalind Franklin, born 1920. Her story annoys me the most. Her X-ray photographs of crystallised DNA taken in the early 1950s proved that the molecule was a helix. This data was used without her knowledge by James Watson and Francis Crick to elucidate the structure of the DNA. They stole her work, took the credit and after she had died of ovarian cancer at the young age of 38, Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Burnell, born 1943, became the first astronomer to detect pulsars (rapidly spinning, extremely dense neutron stars) with the aid of a radio telesope she built herself. But she was deemed too inexperienced to receive the Nobel Prize, which was given instead in 1974 to her thesis advisor, Anthony Hewish, who referred to her as “a jolly good girl just doing her job”.
And that somewhat sums up what women have always been to men – ‘jolly good girls doing their job’. Secondary.
For example, why be a doctor when you can be a nurse?
It is frightening today to think that only 100 years ago, Elizabeth Blackwell was rejected by all major medical schools in the US because she was a woman. It didn’t stop her though. She did not believe them when they told her she could not do it. She not only became the first woman to be awarded a medical degree, she also founded a woman’s medical college to train other women physicians. This is what I mean when I say, today we stand on the shoulders of giants like her and we see the future so clearly.
Changing a Nation
The courage women have is often underestimated. I have grown up hearing the term ‘brave as a man’, ‘timid as a woman’.
Let me show you in the past, how women have had enough courage to stand against an army, against their nation, against everybody else, against their family by sheer courage of conviction. How they have changed the course of war, and life itself.
Let me start with one of the youngest – Joan of Arc. An ambitious 15 year old shepherd girl, cut her hair , wore men’s clothing and convinced Charles VII, then merely the Dauphine of France, that she could help him win the war against the English. Not a brave man, he kept mulling over a decision, and this is when Joan famously uttered the words in exasperation, “Are you a man or a mouse?” Having nothing to lose he gave her command of troops and at the very tender age of 17, she led the troops to a miraculous victory over the English. Her leadership was so formidable that when she approached, many English troops and their commanders fled the battlefield.
Charles VII was crowned king of France; however Joan was captured and tried by the English for witchcraft and heresy. She was told that for a woman to wear men’s clothing was a crime against God. For her determination to continue wearing pants and for insisting that she had done no wrong, she was convicted after a 14 month interrogation and was burnt at the stake in a marketplace.
She was 19 years old. Charles VII made no attempt to come to her rescue.
Maybe because she was just an indispensable jolly good girl doing her job. Maybe he was coward who knew he could never match up to the courage and intelligence of a mere 19 year old girl.
About 50 years ago, a tired black woman riding back home in a bus decided that she had had enough. When she was asked to stand up and move back to allow a white man to sit down, she said “no”. In defiance of segregation laws and the threat of police action, she just said, “no”. Not doing it. Well, she was thrown off the bus , arrested and fined, but that courage to say ‘no’ when ‘no’ was not an option changed a nation. She sat down and the nation stood up, and then began the Montgomery boycott where black men and women, enamoured with her courage, boycotted buses so much so that buses went out of business…and finally, just by that act of sitting down, Rosa Parks triggered the Civil Rights movement that now has led to the election of the first black President of the United States of America. The power of one woman.
Another woman was also arrested in 1872. For the crime of voting. Susan Anthony refused to pay the fine, but campaigned tirelessly giving up to 100 speeches a year all over the nation to enable women and African Americans the right to vote. She asked “Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights?” Susan Anthony published the women’s rights weekly journal, The Revolution, with the motto “The true republic men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” Fourteen years after her death, after ferocious campaigning, American women were finally given the right vote on August 26, 1920. When you are not given the right to vote, you are persona non grata, not to be taken seriously, but now as I have said earlier we have had 68 female Heads of Governments since then. We are taken very seriously now. The power of one woman.
Women in Battle
There have been great women military strategists, but somehow it is always hidden in history books. I had to do some digging to find out ‘behind the scenes’ women who helped win battles for their warrior husbands or fathers at a time when women could be hung for being in an army.
“Women have had enough courage to stand against an army, against their nation, against everybody else, against their family by sheer courage of conviction.”
I will start with Liang Hong Yu, from the Song Dynasty, who became the wife of a lowly ranked officer and with her military brilliance helped him up the ranks to be General. Her military mettle was proven when, outnumbered 8,000 to 100,000 in the epic battle at Huangtien lake, she devised a brilliant military strategy that utilized drumbeats to direct the troops on various actions, and she and her maids with great courage threw off their armour and headgear 55and led the charge into the enemy, watching weaknesses and directing the necessary action to the army at the back. They won and she continued to win battle after battle and received military accolades on her own accord, extremely unusual at that time. I have to tell you how she died too, for after this, no one will doubt the courage and tenacity of a woman who has set her sights on getting something done.
She died in battle. In the thick of war, her abdomen was slashed open and she fell to the ground with almost three feet of her intestines hanging out. As her bodyguards temporarily protected her, she pushed her insides back in, wrapped a long scarf around her torso to keep herself intact, said to her bodyguards, “today I die for my country” and continued to charge forward. She broke through enemy lines, killed dozens of them, before finally succumbing to her failing strength. There was a mighty rush by the enemy to grab her body and chop it to pieces – many killed each other to get to her, such a high a ransom was given for her body parts. That much fear she had elicited in her opponents. Soldiers who got her limbs were given a one rank promotion and the soldier who got her head was given a two rank promotion. When they finally stitched the body together, they found hundreds of wounds on her body, seven of them mortal – all in the front, meaning that when her body had failed, that gigantic spirit of hers, the sheer will to hold on was what drove her on and on to complete her mission.
And tell me, what is wrong with our society, that she does not get a mention in history books? For such bravery and courage under fire, why don’t we revere greatness such as this?
Her story is only told through operas, but she was never given the recognition due as the great General she was.
Then there is Princess Pingyang, an acknowledged martial arts expert who helped her father overthrow the Sui Dynasty and founded the Tang Dynasty, making him the new Emperor of China. She did this by organising her ‘Army of the Lady’ commanded by herself and successfully capturing the capital city of Chang which turned the war to their favour.
A skilled negotiator and an astute politician, she forged important alliances and typical of a woman, forbade her army from looting, ordering instead that food be distributed to hunger-stricken peasants, thereby winning their loyalty as well.
The courage of women warriors throughout history knows no boundaries, from Queen Boadicea of the British Icenic tribe who, after being publicly flogged and her daughters raped by the Romans, took up arms against the great Roman army, and almost defeated them with her army of peasants… to Phoolan Devi, Indian outlaw who took retribution against upper caste men who repeatedly raped and humiliated women in her village because they were poor.
Phoolan Devi’s story needs to be told. A low caste from the poorest of the poor, at the age of 11, she was married off to a 30 year old man who repeatedly beat, tortured and raped her. She left him and was rejected by her family for this, even being asked to commit suicide to contain the shame. Not feeling ‘shameful’ she refused and was made an outcast. At the age of 12, her father lost 15 acres of land to his conniving, yet well connected nephew.
Arguing her family’s case in court angered the nephew who had Phoolan arrested by his police friends. She was jailed for one month—and as was the norm for female inmates,was beaten and raped repeatedly. In her own words, she had become “a whimpering piece of rubbish in the corner of a dirty room with rats staring in my eyes.” She became a dacoit, learnt how to use a gun really well, stole from the upper caste families and shared it with the impoverished lower castes.
She was caught by the upper caste, and reprimanded by being raped for two weeks repeatedly and made to walk naked to fetch water from the well while the whole village watched – considered the biggest shame you could inflict on a woman. This was done to break her spirit. To make her feel like dirt and crush her into nothingness. But they underestimated her resilience. For she was the flower that bloomed during adversity which made her the rarest and most beautiful flower of them all. Her spirit could never be broken.
She escaped, came back and killed 22 men in retribution. For that she became the most wanted woman in India, and after an extensive hunt by the government to capture the elusive Phoolan Devi, (and mind you, none of the men who raped her were even charged), she gave herself up on the condition her gang mates were not to be hung, and served 8 years in prison. After her release in 1994, she plunged into politics—winning a parliamentary seat in 1996 to represent the Untouchables—especially the women, whom she knew had no political representation. This is what she told a western jounalist and I quote,
“You can call it rape in your fancy language. Do you have any idea what it’s like to live in a village in India? What you call rape, that kind of thing happens to poor women in the villages every day. It is assumed that the daughters of the poor are for the use of the rich. They assume that we’re their property. In the villages the poor have no toilets, so we must go to the fields, and the moment we arrive, the rich lay us there; we can’t cut the grass or tend to our crops without being accosted by them. We are the property of the rich… they wouldn’t let us live in peace; you will never understand what kind of humiliation that is. If they wanted to rape us, to molest us, and our families objected, then they’d rape us in front of our families.”
In a ruthless landscape where lawless is law, there is no doubt that the rifle and her body became the equivalent of Gandhi’s salt and homespun cloth. Instead of academic brilliance or regal connections—there were only her sense of right and wrong, and as she claimed, “my anger.”
They may call her Bandit Queen, don’t believe them. As you can see by now, history books have never been kind to women. A giant before her time, fearless warrior and an inspirational woman who told other women, if they cannot save you, you save yourself. Your self-pride is your only armour.
Literary Giants
I have always believed that your worst enemy is your own mind, because it tells you what you can or cannot do. And sometimes, it lies. But to its credit, your mind lies to you because it has been fed many lies over many years. The subjugation of the mind is the cleverest invention of biological warfare, don’t you think? Free your mind and you can do just about anything you put that same mind to.
Which is why today, we need to pay tribute to women who blasted feminine myths and freed the feminine mind through the power of the pen and the power of the speech.
In 1792, Mary Wollenscraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in which she argued that women are not naturally inferior to men as was the theory of the day, but appear to be only because they lack education. It started the wheels turning on giving education for women.
In 1963, Betty Freidan published a book, The Feminine Mystique which questioned the traditional role women were pigeonholed into . She spoke of the ‘Problem With No Name’ and quoted in the beginning of the book “As she made the beds, shopped for groceries … the suburban wife was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — ‘IS THIS ALL?’ ”
Betty Freidan gave a Voice to the trapped, imprisoned, feeling of many women forced into the roles of merely mother and wife, and soon women began lobbying for the reform of oppressive laws and social views that restricted women from the corporate sector.
And then there was Dr. Maya Angelou, who was raped as a child, became a single mother struggling to raise her infant son without any formal training or advanced education, resorting to prostitution to feed her child. Through it she emerged triumphant to become one of the most honoured writers of her generation. Her honors have included a National Book Award nomination for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, (an autobiographical book that talks very frankly on racism and sexism as seen through her own experiences) a Pulitzer Prize nomination for her book of poetry, Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water ‘fore I Die. She has served on two presidential committees, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2000, the Lincoln Medal in 2008, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Angelou has been awarded over thirty honorary degrees. She never forgot her roots though and always exhorted that young girls go out and take the bull by its horns, her famous quote, “Life is a bitch. I like to see a young girl go out there and kick ass” and “I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
“In this brave new world of gender equality, we have begun to raise our daughters more like our sons…but I would like to ask all parents to have the courage to raise their sons more like their daughters too.”
An individual can only inspire the people who know her and whose lives she touches, but an idea, put into words and distributed to millions globally can create a revolution. The pen IS mightier than the sword. And these women wielded their pens like skilled archers, shooting out answers to silent questions, penetrating hearts and minds with courage to ask ‘why’ and ‘why not’, pushing the envelope because it should be pushed. These women fully utilised the power of the media. And this is why I love my job.
I stand here today inspired and charged with energy. I like who I am, I like what I do, I like how I do it and I like most importantly, whatever it is I know I am going to do in the future. And that is a good enough measure of success for anyone. Nobody made me this way. I chose this path. Because I could.
Has anyone ever snatched my glory away from me because I am a woman? NO. And if they had I would snatch it right back. Has anyone ever made me feel second best because I am a woman? NEVER. Because I have not allowed them to. Am I ashamed of my no nonsense way of running a business, my often trashy mouth, my cold, calculated need to control and conquer? NO. Because business is not a playground for wimps and I am a General at war, leading my troops to a certain victory. I suffer no fools, I cannot afford it.
It has taken me a long 40 years to be comfortable in my own skin…but I hope, I hope, I inspire many women to also be that strong. To know that it is OK to hold your ground, it is ok to want to be the best, it’s ok to be blatantly ambitious. It’s ok to not get married and have kids if you dont want to. It’s ok to want to be the President of the world. It’s OK to be a megalomaniac. It’s ok to do just about what ever you want to do.
Women Inspire Other Women. If we want to change this world to be friendly to women, it starts by us inspiring each other. Every day, each one of us can lead lives that inspire through intelligent thinking and bravery of action. And in a chain reaction, we give courage and heart for our sisters, our daughters and our granddaughters to soar as high as they ever can. To like who they are, like what they do, like how they do it and like how their future is going to be. To never again ask, ‘IS THIS ALL?’
But we must NOT do this by demanding that we be given more of whatever it is we want because that is ridiculous.
We are women. We are NOT handicaps. We do NOT need handouts. We don’t need a quota system that says we must have x amount of women in the government and x amount of women in the corporate world and x amount of women in the universities. It is the silliest thing ever and it demeans us. It defeats everything that we have fought for for so long – equality.
Women should get whatever they want on their own merit and their own strength, and not through a ticket on account of us being a woman. If my daughter is studying medicine in a university, she should have earned her position there, and not deprived a better student on account of her gender. If she runs a company one day, it should be because she is the best strategist and salesperson, who will be the best face for the company. If I get a chance to run this country, it should be because I am the best person for the job. Period. It should never be on the account that I was a statistical figure, completing a given quota. That is belittling to either a woman or a man.
I have given many talks before and very often, women ask me, ‘How do you combine career with family?’ I have never once heard a man of my generation ask that very same question.
In this brave new world of gender equality, we have begun to raise our daughters more like our sons…but I would like to ask all parents to have the courage to raise their sons more like their daughters too. The world needs this. I end with a beautiful poem by Dr. Maya Angelou that should inspire all women regardless of size, height, academic and ethnic background.
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies.
I say, It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips, The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman ….Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman, …..That’s me.”
And that’s all of you, ladies…..let’s give ourselves a big hand now for being us and all that we can do.
