Empowerment for women, by women
Here's what we learned from the Keds International Women's Day celebration.
Every year, we celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8 with Instagram posts, uplifting listicles, and messages of power that put the spotlight on female empowerment. But do we carry that spirit of celebration with us during the rest of the year?
As a way to continue the conversation, Keds launched their limited edition IWD sneaker collection with a “Ladies for Ladies” talk featuring female power duos who are killing it in their respective fields.
Last March 18, we were treated to inspiring talks by body positivity advocates Danah and Stacy Gutierrez of Plump.ph, social entrepreneurs Anna Meloto-Wilk and Camille Meloto Rodriguez of Human Nature, and editors Jillian Gatcheco and Retty Contreras of
Cosmopolitan Philippines. New Keds ambassador Gabbi Garcia also shared her own message.
All of the women shared little nuggets of wisdom on the themes of selflove and empowerment. Here are two of our favorite takeaways. Before you go on to save the world, you need to take care of yourself. Women like to think of the bigger picture, which is great in the long run. But as Camille and Anna advised us: “Keep yourself in a good running condition because you want your body, your mind to help other people.” Whether it be through self-confidence (you are beautiful in your own skin) or self-assurance (as Stacy noted, “There are so many branches of self-love and so many messages, but right now it’s good to be solid in your foundations in a way that says ‘I will not be swayed.’”). Second, we need to build a culture of women supporting other women. Though we’d like to think that society nowadays is more progressive, it’s a sad reality that certain sectors of society still continue to operate under male-dominated systems. It’s for this reason that Cosmopolitan Philippines editors Jillian and Retty stressed the importance of women “paying it forward” in the workplace. This goes for places outside of work as well — the best way to change the culture of misogyny is to build an ecosystem of support. As a woman, you need to bring other women up instead of just competing for the top spot.
As Gabbi says, “Let’s empower each other instead of bringing each other down. It’s so fun to live in this day and age because everybody just wants to empower each other, everybody is all for self-love, for body positivity.”