“The world would be a different place if its nations believed and practiced what’s been called “womenomics”, a theory linking the advancement of women to increased development rates” – add “cities” to “nations” in this statement by UN News, we arrive at the TCWNN’s central claim.
When you are a woman it becomes complex to define the professional development you would like to achieve, since in some way the family, traditions, and customs were preparing us mainly for family assistance tasks. In these times, we are experiencing a global paradigm shift that promotes abandoning that role for another, putting core beliefs in tension.
Globalization allows people, organizations, and enterprises, among others, to act Global-Locally: GloCaL. Think globally but act locally. This phenomenon is understood as an accelerated intensification of interactions between countries, not only or primarily through the governments. It involves a process of transnationalisation of politics, where the actions are carried out by a transnational actor (states, companies, unions, non-governmental organizations, et cetera.). In this scenario, we have the best opportunity to magnify our impact; by working within a network of like-minded visionaries and troubleshooters.
Professional Women: Achieving Boldness Through Alliances
In this context, being able to see yourself as an economically independent professional woman who can express her thoughts, while at the same time strengthening the foundations of society by thinking in community, requires an effort that you must be willing to make – but also of a boldness that is achieved through alliances.
One consistent observation in cities is that gender considerations are often overlooked during the decision-making and budgeting processes in urban life. While there is a focus on empowering women through sharing the burden of care tasks that negatively impact women’s professional careers, we missed the opportunity to accelerate access to finance or funding for women’s development and/or economic independence. It is something that leaders mention, but it is not connected to concrete actions. We need to think of women’s inclusion as a cross-cutting principle.
At Smartly we had the opportunity to organize the Urban Thinkers Campus (UTCs): Vibrant and Inclusive Urban Life (in Mexico and Ecuador), co-organize three Special UTCs COVID -19 edition, and also relaunch the Urban Journalist Academy (Buenos Aires and Mexico, 2019), among other activities related to this topic.
Why Do We Need Female Professional Alliances?
When women have a leadership position, many often feel alone. It took us so much effort to get “there” that we forgot how to build partner-allies-fellow-comrades relationships. We are missing the opportunity to share female peer-to-peer advice in high-level decision-making processes, which impacts our access to finance and political power.
Women face challenges that are replicated regardless of the region, country, city, culture, or belief, and whose solutions are global, given that local problems are global.
Women 2030, an initiative by Smartly, introduces a strategic framework for fostering alliances among women aimed at achieving sustainable career growth. At our events, we underscore the critical principle of Women Supporting Women. We recognize that the model of female solidarity we advocate faces resistance, not only from societal norms but also from women in positions of power. For example, creating and expanding partnerships presents a significant challenge. While there is a genuine desire to establish these alliances, the entrenched routines of numerous organizations and individual goals often render their sustainability a complex issue.
With our allies, we could observe and analyze the tangible and effective possibilities for women to access knowledge and power, apply technology for personal and community development, and generate alliances during and after these urban thinkers’ campuses. We will take a closer look at the analysis postulated so far to find out how far regional political systems (and social, economic, and environmental models) shape the realization potential of our demands.
In the context of three global crises: climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the global security crisis that affects human life and impacts all communities, we need to look deeply into the dominant role of the cities, and especially into partnerships (SDG17) as a key bridge to connect agendas. This is crucial to accelerate inclusion and gender equality for the cities we need, the achievement of the SDGs, and the New Urban Agenda for good living.
Photo: V. Coniglione (Smartly).
