it wasn’t just nun Denise suffering from self-confidence I remember sitting in this exact same auditorium in 2012 attending a campus recruitment session I was thinking to myself what am I going to do with my life I had no grades to be recruited by the companies neither did I have the skills they were looking for my me appears however laughed it off knowing they’ll figure it out I couldn’t help but think where did they get this confidence from are they born with it or are they brought up with it looking back but the only reason why I could progress in my career is because I had access to real world opportunities that helped me identify my skills and strengths
these need not textbook this did not necessarily inculcate textbook education it’s amazing to see your near more girl and women are enrolling into schools and colleges girls are more successful than boys and clearing cloths and exams this trend has been consistent for over seven years what’s alarming however is that more girls are studying but nearly 84% of them drop out before graduating more women are going to college but few are working today as we speak 250 million more Indian women could be employed but are not so when you think about it what is the reason for this discrimination in a country with strong traditional influences embarked on us from a young age we often fail to question the concept of prejudice a relatively rigid structure that has been imposed on us from such a young age we women come with the blueprint of being caretakers well as men are considered to be decision makers or providers most women urban and rural are brought up with the preconceived notion that education is the stepping stone towards finding a good husband apparently
the ultimate goal of a woman’s life parents feel like they have fulfilled their duty by educating their daughters and what is left is marrying them off Indian parents especially focus saving all their lives for their daughter’s wedding rather than investing in her dreams and saving for hogs social growth today when someone asks me who are you or describe yourself
does anybody ever really acknowledge the good you are do you know the good you are do you know and I remember having a moment thinking I’m now for the rest of my life going to be called a bad girl I really don’t belong here and I don’t I don’t even know how this happened to me that I am in a place for bad girls because I didn’t feel like I was a bad girl and so the question is what do you do you believe that you are worthy of happiness I know that if you allow the past to define you are responsible for your life and if you’re sitting around waiting on somebody to save you to fix you to even help you you are wasting your time
You are beautiful. You are smart. You are funny. You are kind. You are unique. You are worthy of love and affection. You are never too much, and you are always enough. You are precious. You are a diamond, a rose, a pearl, the most stunning of all God’s creation.
I suggest you check the records. I was also very offended on behalf of the women of Australia when in the course of this carbon pricing campaign the Leader of the Opposition said, “What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing …” Thank you for that painting of women’s roles in modern Australia! And then, of course, I was offended too by the sexism, by the misogyny, of the Leader of the Opposition catcalling across this table at me as I sit here as Prime Minister, “if the Prime Minister wants to, politically speaking, make an honest woman of herself
something that would never have been said to any man sitting in this chair. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition went outside in the front of parliament and stood next to a sign that said ‘Ditch the witch’. I was offended when the Leader of the Opposition stood next to a sign that described me as a man’s bitch. I was offended by those things. Misogyny, sexism, every day from this Leader of the Opposition. Every day, in every way, across the time the Leader of the Opposition has sat in that chair and I have sat in this chair, that is all we have heard from him. And now the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously. Apparently he’s woken up, after this track record and all of these statements, he’s woken up and he’s gone, “Oh dear, there’s this thing called sexism; oh my lord, there’s this thing called misogyny. Now who’s one of them
I want you to remember that just 70 watts your 70 watts has to be turned way up because you got way more to give us it ain’t over you don’t put a period with God put a comma and when you turn it up to a hundred and fifty nine watts you know you keep turning it up you like you stop them in your life you say today is the first day of the rest of my life you can’t turn it up you got five people that can’t handle your light and before today you might have dimmed your light you might have shrunk a little bit you might have tempered it down a little bit
You can be confident, you can be courageous, have confidence, be a great communicator, be consistent. But if you don’t have integrity that compass doesn’t point true North. I look at my responsibility not as accepting an honor. I look upon it as accepting a challenge and a responsibility. An obligation to actually make it possible for the people who are younger to come up and achieve levels of greatness, so they too can be on the stage sometime in the future.
You know what was my biggest fear? Divorce. But the day I decided that this is nothing but my fear, I liberated myself by setting him free, and I made myself emotionally so strong that the day I got the news that he’s getting married, I sent him a text that I’m so happy for you, and I wish you all the best. And he knows that I pray for him today. Number two was I won’t be able to be a mother again, and that was quite devastating for me. But then I realized, there are so many children in the world.
All they want is acceptance. So there is no point of crying, just go and adopt one, and that’s what I did. (cheering) I gave my name in different organizations, different orphanages, and I waited patiently. Two years later, I got this call from a very small city in Pakistan. I got a call and they said, “Are you Muniba Mazari? “There is a baby boy, and would you like to adopt?” I could literally feel the labor pains. Yes, yes, I am going to adopt him! I am coming to take him home. And that day, Neal was two days old, and today he’s six. You know when you end up being on the wheelchair, what’s the most painful thing? People think that they will not be accepted by other people, because we, in the world of perfect people, are imperfect. So I decided to appear more in public. I started to paint. I have done a lot of modeling campaigns. I decided that I’m going to join the national TV as an anchor person.
Figures revealed by the Women’s Media Center in New York show that across a five-year period ending in the year 2012, of the 500 top-grossing movies, only two of those had Black women directors attached to them. That’s 0.4%. I’m thinking back now to the night before I was about to set foot on the set of my first movie ever to direct. And I can tell you now: I was absolutely terrified. My fear pivoted around the fact that I knew that I wasn’t what was expected of a director. I didn’t fit the industry model, full stop. I wondered how I was going to lead my all-male crew, and they were also all white, how I was going to instill confidence in them and get them to believe in me, so that I could end up with a film that I had written on screen. After all, I knew that they had never worked under anyone like me before; my shape, my flavor
Defining yourself outside of the realms of society, it’s not easy. As a writer and director, it’s such an interesting and fascinating subject to me that it has risen to the fore of every single project I have ever worked on, and probably every single project I will ever do. I think the reason is because it’s so complex. I think what’s so hard about it is to recognize when your choices and your direction in life are being influenced by society’s perhaps more restricted ideas of who you should be. When the mirror image of what society is suggesting to you doesn’t reflect the person that you really feel you are. Or even worse, when the untrue image that’s coming back to you does feel real. Because the messages and the influence can be so subtle that it’s just easy to dismiss.
when I was younger I lived across a garment primary school where my housekeepers daughter nandhini used to study every evening after school nun Denis would come home to finish her homework while waiting for her mother to finish work curious one day I asked her what was she working on she said she was helping a tenth grader finish his homework nun Denis was only in seventh grade at that time I can assure you today with two masters degrees I probably still won’t be able to solve that algorithm nun then he was working on not without the help of Google a few years past I was prepping to leave to Australia to further my education while Nandhini was prepping to get married
I protested to her mother my mother offered to fund for her college education but I was perplexed to learn that this decision was taken by number knee and her parents she was confident that she did not have the skills to get her through college her parents prayed on the sphere and proposed to solution marriage they convinced her that marriage is the solution to all her problems and a reason for existence it was 2016 I just returned from Australia and started space basic a company focused on optimizing communication and collaboration within universities and student housing a few months into starting space basic
I met nun Denis again I quickly learned that this girl who loved solving problems for math for 10th graders was married with two children and working at a clothing store at 19 I felt a deep sense of disappointment and anger this is when I realized they is a problem there is a problem only our generation can solve how will we contribute to growth when we can’t achieve or create equal opportunities gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but it is critical to economic challenge over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same jobs as men globally countries are losing over a hundred and sixty trillion dollars in wealth because of the difference in earnings between men and women it’s great that the government of India has created initiatives to promote skill development so that women can be a part of the workforce but I personally believe that apart from technical skills what women really need are the skills that will help them build confidence in self morale
