Dear Readers

As you may know I am a proud feminist and I firmly believe that the world will be better place if we have more women in power. We have evidence and outstanding examples in the past and present of how powerful we are as human being. For instance, in the late 19th and early-20th centuries, the Suffragettes  fought for the extension of the right to vote in public elections to women in the United Kingdom. In the films « The Help »and « Hidden Figures », we can witness bravery and courage from the men and women who fought for « racial » equality ( I hate the word race as I only believe in one race i.e the human race). In Mayotte, Zena M’Dere participated in the actions of the « Chatouilleuse movement » to fight for the island to remain in the French Republic between 1966 and 1976. Presently, we have incredible and successful women leaders such as Arianna Huffington, Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Sheryl Sandberg and Marissa Mayer to name just a few.

We have fought and led from the front for many decades so why do we have little representation in politics and/or in big corporate organizations?I happen to have some answers based on my own experience and on information available on the media. Out of all the women bosses I have had over the years ( 3 to be precise), none of them were equipped to be good leaders as they were competitive, back stabbers, jealous, temperamental, emotionally unstable, poor decision makers, power hungry and very shallow. Out of all the men bosses I have had ( 4 in total), only 2 of them presented similar patterns as the my former female bosses but they were also very territorial and hated women and felts inferior towards them. My former line manager at Reckitt Benckiser tried to get me fired when he realised that I was more knowledgeable and competent than him. He bullied me whenever he had an opportunity until one sweet day  when I gave him a piece of my bright mind i.e he may have been head hunted but he was immature, incompetent and unequipped to be a Global Business Systems Manager and I made a formal complaint to HR before I resigned.

Looking at the very short statistics, it seems that men are better leaders than women, au contraire mes amis. Although we women have more freedom than we have ever had, we are still programmed to stay the scenes, to be good mothers or supporters for our husbands or partners but the worst is that we are programed to be our worst enemies. How many women out there criticise Theresa May for what she is wearing or for not having children rather focusing on your actions and policies as a Prime Minister. How many women declared not to trust Hilary Clinton for standing by her husband during and after the Monica Lewinsky scandal? How many women belittle Angela Merkel’s dress code instead of giving her the credit she deserves for being one of the most successful German Chancellors? How many women were outraged by Marissa Mayer’s decision to shorten her maternity leave and come back as CEO of Yahoo? How many women in Mayotte isolate other women for criticizing the polygamous system?

I know what you are thinking…. if we stop blaming, criticising or belittling each other, the problem will be solved. I am afraid it is not that simple. We are up against a whole oppressing system namely policies  and societal pressures that do not accept us yet as being integral part of the world and as long as those policies and pressures exist, things will never change. It is a catch 22, isn’t it?  The only way to gain full parity is by having more women in power but the system prevents us from getting there but when we do reach the top we can make huge differences. For example, in her book ‘Lean In » Sheryl Sandberg tells us about how she easily managed to get dedicated parking spaces for pregnant closer to their offices by simple asking the Google CEOs. They never even thought about that until one of the senior executives was heavily pregnant and struggled to walk to the office.

There is so much to do as there are still millions young girls who are being denied the right to education for fear of empowering them. There are girls who are still facing female circumcision and are being denied the right to a happy and consented sex life. There are thousands of men around the world who are unpunished for raping, verbally and physically abusing or harassing women so let us reclaim our inner power and say no to those abuses and say yes to freedom of all human beings.

The Mayotte Festival this August is an empowerment and a celebration exercise. We will display the talents of men and women of that beautiful island to hopefully inspire and encourage them that they can do anything if they put their heart and soul into it. Get ready for the adventure because it is going to be epic!