Women discuss gender issues
Local women speak about inequalities at work and in education.
April 1, 2015
On March 26, the City of Hayward held “Hayward Honors Women” for the third time at City Hall. The event featured four women with roots in Hayward who discussed gender issues and women’s rights.
“Events like these are important because I think it is a coming together and sharing ideas and thoughts on issues,” said Hayward Mayor Barbara Halliday. “It contributes to our goal of promoting education in the community. Events like these highlight local issues for women and we are likely to learn from them.”
“Hayward Honors Women” lasted two hours and was moderated by NBC’s “The Mix” host Janet Riley, as she guided the panelists through questions that ranged from women in the workplace to young women in social media.
The panelist included a variety of women from different generations, professions and cultures. The panelist were: Gail Steele, former Hayward City Council member; Cecily Joseph, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility for Symantec Corporation; Farima Pour-Khorshid, a third year Ph.D. student; and Ana Rangel a Recent UC Berkeley graduate.
Alexis Diaz opened the event, a student at Hayward High School, as she shared her poem “I am Woman.” In Diaz’s poem she said, “I am strong and independent, I am woman.”
“Out of all the speakers tonight, the young girl [Alexis Diaz] who read the poem was my favorite. She’s a representation of what we want our young woman to be like in the community. She’s brave, I wish I could have been a lot like her when I was in high school,” said Halliday.
One of the largest conversation topics was brought up by Riley, as she asked panelists the question directed to Steele, “What was your experience working in a mans world, in Public Government?” The question, although directed at Steele, ignited a response from each panelist about personal experience.
Steele was the third women elected into Hayward’s City Council, and shared that at the time she was the only woman on the council.
Steele explained that her job on City Council at the time was to be a liaison for the community, and to do that she walked from door to door to get to know the residents in her community, something that the men on city council did not understand at the time. She said that people didn’t talk to her for 4 to 8 years, because of her gender and her approach to work.
While Steele discussed the struggles she dealt with at work many years ago, Joseph discussed the issues women face working in a ‘mans world’ today.
“Companies face the issue of tokenism all the time, where they hire one woman to say that they have a diverse office, but when you hire one woman, she will feel excluded. So they hire two, and that causes competition between women. So the magic number is three,” said Joseph.
Joseph explained that the number three is good because it brings more women into the work environment, but at a point, it can become a negative because then companies are hiring women to fill a quota.
Joseph and Steele spoke extensively on the issues women face in the workplace, and Rangel and Pour-Khorshid discussed the issues young women face in education.
Rangel explained that women are attending and graduating college more now than ever. She attributes that to the types of outreach programs in the area like Puente and Upward Bound that help young women and others understand that college is a possibility.
The panel ended with a question and answer segment from the audience. Where one audience member stood up and asked the question, “How do you feel about women who are prejudice towards other women?”
“I think Madeleine Albright summed it up nicely when she said, ‘there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help women,” responded Joseph to the audience question.
The event concluded with refreshments and time for audience members to network and socialize with the panelists and women in the Hayward community.
“I feel like walking away from this event women should feel empowered to do anything, whatever you put your mind to, you can do it, “ said event attendee Patricia Godino.
