Some of Belize's most high-powered leaders gathered at the Biltmore today. No there was no Dean Barrow or Said Musa, the leaders were all women. From Mayor Zenaida Moya to Senator Dolores Balderamos Garcia to former Fin Sec Carla Barnett and many others. And they were there talking about empowerment with guidance from a noted scholar on gender politics. Eudine Barriteau is the head of the Center for Gender and Development Studies at the University of West Indies and today she had Belize's most powerful and highly respected women thinking and talking about leadership. Dolores Balderamos Garcia says a change is gonna come.
Dolores Balderamos Garcia, Ambassador for Women
"In terms of women wanting to be involved though, I think that we have to embrace the idea that we can work equally with men in our national life and in politics and in making out country better. And what Professor Eudine is saying to us today is that we have to examine the ideologies that have kept us out. For example why do we talk more about the clothes that the women politicians are wearing or whether they are married or how many children thy have. Why do we not examine the policies that women are bringing to the table.
And we are equally competent but we have to prepare ourselves but at the same time the politically parties along with us as women leaders have to embrace the idea of women coming more into the mainstream and not just being the tireless campaigners, the rice and beans maker, the supporters etc. Women are the more resilient and tireless campaigners. Women are the loyal political party supporters and therefore we need to translate that into embracing another part of it, which is the actual leadership. But if we are going to be stepping forward, then we have to prepare ourselves to question the status quo and to embrace the leadership like I said.
When we started this morning with the national anthem, for example I asked that we take a little poetic liberty and say 'our womanhood we pledge to your liberty' and still some of the women sang 'our manhood we pledge to your liberty' because it is what you are used. But that being said and that was just a little joke, we are not changing the national anthem, but I think that what we have to do is recognize that as women and our womanhood we can bring to play in so many ways across the board; in business, in community work but we can also do so in politics."
Ninety women participated.
