The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Each for Equal’.
We asked Suzane, a 2019/20 Routes mentee, to share her reflections, opinions, hopes and visions for a world where each of us takes responsibility for fighting for equality.
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To me, equality means we are all the same and we are supposed to be treated the same. I believe equality means that we should learn to respect each other and to take each other for who we are, not to put anyone down because of their situation or because of their circumstances, or where they come from or if they haven’t been to school.
Inequality to me is when someone doesn’t look at you as what you are. For example, men sometimes they treat women like they are children or very small; they find that you are not qualified enough to talk when they are talking, you just have to come and listen and obey. I find it a bit hard to take, but at the same time you just have to let go.
I also think that it is like when people look at you in a certain way because you haven’t got the qualification to stand next to them, or be on the same table as them or to be in their environment - you are not part of them. So many people go through this and face this, and I realise that so many women in particular go through this situation - they believe that they haven’t got much to bring, so they feel “my life is limited, I haven’t been to school, I’m not educated enough to raise my voice, I just have to obey this person and do everything he asks me to do because I’m useless. How can I raise my voice? I am nobody.”
So many women just accept this situation and live that life. For so many years, so many women have been in this situation. It is a good thing if we raise awareness about this so that those women can try to wake up, like from a dream, and know that they can leave.
I think the most important thing is to show the people around us that we care and that we love them, no matter what their situation is and no matter what they are going through. The first thing we have to do is to show them love, to make them feel special in their body and in their mind. When you go to the hospital, if the doctor doesn’t welcome you well, you start to think “Oh, I don’t know why the doctor didn’t receive me well? Is it because of my condition? Is it because I’m black?” You start asking yourself so many questions. But if you go to the hospital and the doctor receives you and welcomes you well, you feel like you want to tell them all your problems and how you feel in that moment.
We must show love to the people we come across to show them we care, so they can tell us about themselves and start opening up. I am just saying this out of my own experience. If someone shows me love, I feel more open and confident to speak to that person. We need to share the love to the people who surround us.
The person who has inspired me this year was the show we went to watch [with Routes], the Tina Turner Musical. I got so much inspiration from that show: you have to get up from wherever you are and try and stand up for yourself. No matter what is coming your way you have to be strong and not give up; you have to force and believe in yourself and people will start to appreciate you and respect you and love you.
I got so much inspiration from that show, and also from Eszter [my mentor]. Every time I met her she always treated me like I was like the same person like her, even though I always see myself as so little, so ‘down there’, she always made sure she put me on the top, where I felt like I was being loved and able to open up, because of the love she showed me, because of the way she treated me, because of the belief she put in me.
When you show love, the people around you feel free - that’s what she did for me. She helped me to have the confidence to build up myself and be able to speak out, and she always made sure I was being treated well, which made me feel really good. That made me feel like I was a member of society, like a grown up person. Every time we met, she always made sure I felt good in my body. Nobody had done that for me. I believe that if we all show love to one another as she did with me, the world will be a good place and so many women will not be scared to open up and speak their mind because they will be loved.