Women share inspiration and hurdles during International Women’s Day events

A pair of International Women’s Day events in Swift Current shone a spotlight on both the challenges and potential women have in today’s society.

An International Women’s Day Talk and Concert hosted by Saskmusic was held at the Lyric Theatre on Friday night.

Eliza Doyle was one of the musicians contributing to the panel discussion. She said that there are still many stereotypes remaining in the music industry.

“There still is an under representation of women. I think it’s because the less women see themselves in particular roles the less they think that they can do those jobs,” Doyle said.

Doyle is an accomplished musician, with a decades long career as a member of The Cracker Cats, Heartstrings, The Hard Ramblers plus the award winning The Midnight Roses. She released her solo project It Ain’t What It Seems in 2016, and this past year toured with The Dead South.

Despite this impressive musical resume, she is still treated differently because she is a women.

“A lot of times we’d get to the venue it was automatically assumed I was the merch girl…or the tour manager or somebody who would get people food. It wasn’t assumed that I would be in the band.”

She said a bias also still exists among performers.

“When you’re in a jam with a bunch of musicians, it’s usually guys, on stage or at a festival, they won’t send you solos. They’ll go around in a circle and they’ll send solos to other people because they don’t think you know how to play your instrument. Maybe they only see women doing tambourine and vocals, or keyboard. So I definitely notice it.”

On Friday there was also a Cooking Culture event at St. Stephen’s Anglican Church. The theme of this event was Innovate For Change, and a pair of guest speakers shared about the challenges and success of women in the scientific field.

Dr. Michele Jagga, who works as a family physician at the North Side Medical Clinic, reflected that medicine remains a hard career for women to get into.

“Just the fact that as women, we are also mothers, and somehow society is still shaming us for wanting your career and also being a mom. It’s always been you can only have one. How dare you try and be one, and think you can do both. That’s where I find the shame still is. And the myth that you can’t do both. And kind of just finding the balance and not letting either one of your passions actually get ruined trying to do the one and not the other one as the best that you can.

“I think that’s one thing that deters women, because we are told if you want to be a mom you can’t be a doctor. If you want to be a doctor, you sure as heck can’t be a mom. You can’t be a good doctor if you want to be a mom.”

Samia Berraies, who works as a Research Scientist at the Swift Current Research and Development Centre, shared her story of coming from the small country of Tunisia in northern Africa.

“In Tunisia that can be a challenge,” she said of pursuing an agriculture research career in Tunisia.

“I had a dream to be in a place where the wheat is the major thing, and Canada it’s the major thing…especially Saskatchewan. So I’m in heaven here.”

She admitted that she put more self imposed pressure on herself while pursuing her education.

“Instead of working one hour, we would work two hours just because you felt that responsibility that you have to kind of stand out, to shine. Because you think always they will compare you to a man.”