Dear Readers

Yes why do we underestimate ourselves in societies dominated and ruled by men? Why do men get to decide what we should do with our bodies, whether we should get an abortion or not? Why should they get to define what it is sexy or not or what female perfection looks like? Who gives them the right to decide that men deserve a better pay than women and why dear lord why are they exempt from domestic chores etc? I guess my answers are in the questions that I am asking. I have already raised the issue of the lack of female leaders in a previous post but I really would like to take a stance right here that we have more reasons to overestimate ourselves than the other way around. We do succeed against all odds and the successes should inspire more women to reclaim their inner power to reach real parity in the world. Easier said than done, right? Absolutely but it is possible.

I thought for many years that I was this free, ambitious and confident woman then I realised recently that I unconsciously thought than men were better than women, why? Because the more « serious » topics were taught by men such as math, physics, biology whereas my female teachers covered the less ‘serious  » topics such as languages, philosophy, history or literature, which was my first phase of programing as I was very good at the less serious topics. Second phase of programing, I grew up in an island where men are allowed to have up to 5 wives, which is considered as normal. However, a woman who has an affair is considered as a « prostitute » therefore some of my friends, my sisters or cousins’ reputation got damaged because they were fed up of being cheated on or worse some were completely isolated from their own community because they were considered as a threat to the whole society. 3rd and last phase of inner programing is the type of men I chose, undervalued me and my degrees. One never realised that I was fluent in English until he had an English article to translate for his journalism degree and the other thought my Master’s degree in Business and Languages was worthless until I restructured his whole company and instilled a more positive and productive culture.

Some mindfulness experts say that there is nothing more powerful than loving ourselves and realising our inner power and self worth, which I am learning to do every day. It takes time and real efforts to uninstall all the bad programing and all the doubts. Despite a misogynist society, I can without a shadow of a doubt that I am a winner, a fighter and I can do anything because I have achieved all the goals I set to myself i.e I left my comfort at age 18 to move to France to pursue my higher education and I am the only child out of 12 siblings to have a Master’s degree, tick! I got to live in 3 of the countries I have always wanted to live in, France, Spain and an English speaking country (England) to become multilingual , tick! I didn’t sand still and gained various and transferable skills through working in different sectors, tick! Financed and passed my driving license, tick! Being surrounded by love and people who truly matter and inspire me, tick! Traveling around the world to expand my horizons, visited India, Czech Republic,China, French Guiana, Greece, Ireland, Scotland etc.., tick! Becoming an activist to emancipate people from Mayotte, tick!

The latter is the most humbling and difficult challenge I have ever undertaken in my whole life but I am confident that it is achievable with love and support so please don’t hesitate to make a donation to make this happen on https://www.leetchi.com/c/projets-de-zainal-ibrahim. My advice to anyone especially women is: you are already amazing and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!