March is very busy, and this is my only excuse for writing this blog so late in the month. It is a month that is framed by two major events, the first being International Women’s Day on the 8th and the second being International Francophonie Day on the 21st.
March is also witness to a change in the seasons, as it foreshadows the coming summer in the North hemisphere and winter in the South; in both North and South, colours change, and the animal kingdom sets out on its annual migrations. March has seen changes in the Alliance française de Delhi this year too: our all-important elections for the new governing board, which took place on the 21st.
International Women’s Day translates into French as “Journée International des Droits des Femmes”, and I prefer the longer description of this important occasion, as it is a not just another global celebration of a group of people such as Mother’s day or teacher’s day. This Day commemorates the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women of cause, but perhaps even more importantly, it draws attention to the women’s rights movement, and to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women.
To mark it, we organised a round table with six exceptional women, who have reached positions of power in the fields of business, academia and diplomacy, and during the debate, they used stories from their own lives to illustrate the difficulties they have encountered and overcome in order to become the “women in charge” they are today. Do watch this event on the Alliance française’s facebook channel.
According to the UN[1], 10 countries have a female Head of State today, and 13 countries have a female Head of Government. 119 countries have never had a woman leader…
This inequality is obvious and undeniable, but let us consider the countries that are being led by women through these days of pandemic, such as Germany, New Zealand and Taiwan. Can we see a pattern in leadership here: which leaders handled the first wave of COVID-19 the best?
It does appear that women leaders have had better results in terms of handling this particular health crisis. If you are interested, the Forbes online magazine has an excellent summary of the research done by Supriya Garikipati (University of Liverpool) and Uma Kambhampati (University of Reading). One word that makes a frequent appearance in their research, and that was also heard often during the debate at the Alliance Francaise, is the word Empathy, not by any means to be confused with Emotional (although it frequently is).
March also brings us Francophonie. Put briefly, this word signifies an institution that organizes relations between countries which have the French language in common, or in French “en partage”. It counts[2] 88 countries among its members and encompasses 330 million speakers of French, almost half of whom live in Africa; and thanks to these speakers, French is said to be the 5th most spoken language in the world.
Traditionally, this has been celebrated at the Alliance française with the Francophone Mela, with the participation of dozens of francophone countries and hundreds of visitors. Of course, this year, this annual gathering has not been possible. Nevertheless, we will continue to welcome some of you to francophone film screenings and some interesting webinars.
Of cause, like you, we prefer to interact, discuss, and even argue in person, so here’s to better times in the future…
Keep safe, keep busy, learn French.
[1] https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures#_edn1
[2] https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/francophony-and-the-french-language/la-francophonie-an-area-of-multilateral-cooperation/