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this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2023
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If this was a meeting on gender equality rather than female empowerment your reaction would make more sense. The two concepts are similar but different and apply to different social contexts.
Equality is a political goal, empowerment is the actions we collectively take today regardless of our patchwork of political realities. Do we need men to be the leaders of female empowerment in places where women do not yet feel even close to equal to men? Maybe this would make sense in some places, counties where women leaders are ubiquitous like New Zealand and Finland (they arent really ubuquitous , merely moreso than the rest of the world). But that's really up to the women to decide who empowers them when they feel disenfranchised by their country's establishment.
So do you think Japanese women feel inspired and empowered by this guy? Or is it better interpretiert as tonedeaf homework put forth by someone who didnt understand the assignment?
This reminds me -
Last year I went to a technical/professional conference where one of the highlighted topics was "Empowering Women in [Niche Technical Field X]." To my surprise, both of the speakers were men and neither had ever worked in [Technical Field X]. One was an ex-Football player. I forget what the other dude did for a living before he started the lecture circuit.
Both had daughters, though, so that apparently qualified them to speak. The other thing that qualified them was the fact that they were both men. They explained this. They needed to speak because "no one listens to women when they whine" about inclusion or equity or how to solve concrete problems.
The takeaway was: Want a voice at the table, ladies? Then ask a man to speak on your behalf and let them give the other men a good stern talking to. (And buy my book.)
Yeah, allies are great. I get it, thanks. But this was just really fucking stupid.
The conference was a mixed bag, but I left that pair a particularly blistering review on the conference feedback channel. Honestly, it was so bad that I took extra care with reviewing the other speakers just so it was clear I wasn't a troll (or an ungrateful bitch who couldn't understand that these guys were being super magnanimous).
At least my manager got a good laugh out of the story.