May sets the record straight on gender bias
FORMER BRITISH PM TELLS WOMEN NOT TO THINK OF THEMSELVES AS VICTIMS
From delivering inspirational messages to boost women’s participation in politics, to sharing anecdotes like changing clothes in a cockpit, former British Prime Minister Theresa May won hearts at the Global Women’s Forum in Dubai yesterday.
May spent half-an-hour in conversation with the UAE’s Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, Lana Nusseibeh, in a session yesterday.
The UK’s second female Prime Minister, who has been in government service for 23 years as Maidenhead’s Member of Parliament, shared her views about how men, women and society in general can help improve female participation in politics across the world.
She told women never to think that “you don’t get something because you are woman”.
Leadership roles
May said having women in key positions was important to inspire the younger generation to aspire to reach those levels.
“If women, young women particularly, don’t see women in government, don’t see women in politics and don’t see women in senior positions in business, they are less likely to think that that is the role they can aspire to. So, having those numbers is important,” she said.
Advising women not to lose heart when they get a few knock-backs, May, who was forced to resign from a threeyear-old premiership last year, shared her experience of losing her very first election. “I didn’t win my first parliament election… But it gave me a good experience. You have to keep going. If you really believe, you will get there,” she said.
Her anecdotes about her heel getting stuck on Downing Street and having to change her clothes while two pilots sat behind a sheet on board an air force aircraft enlightened the audience about the genderspecific difficulties that women in leadership roles encounter.