On the occasion of celebrating International Women’s Day, TPO Foundation organized the panel “Fight for women’s rights between generations” on the 7th of March, with the support of the Swiss Embassy. The students of the First Bosniak High School were part of the audience, and one of them prepared a reflection on the held panel. You can read Hana Aldžić’s text here.
REFLECTION ON THE PANEL
“The fight for women’s rights between generations”
(Hana Aldžić (First Bosniak High School)
After the panel discussion which was held on 07.03.3033. and organized by the TPO Foundation from Sarajevo and the University Gender Resource Center of the University of Sarajevo, with the support of the Swiss Embassy, I thought about what it means to be a woman and how far women have come in their fight for equality.
Being a woman is not easy – it wasn’t easy three centuries ago – and it won’t be easy in three years. I don’t like clichéd statements and when I say that, I’m not trying to present us as universal victims throughout world history. We are fighters, warriors, heroines, doctors, programmers, engineers, teachers, mothers, lawyers, and many other professions and titles above all.
Of course, it is also not easy to be a man, nor a human in general, however, the eighth of March is the only day when we are allowed to remember the struggle of our predecessors, which we must continue.
Like a hidden pearl, one panel was held, tucked away, and hidden inside a building that is nevertheless located in one of the main and busiest streets of Sarajevo.
Unequal wages, unequal opportunities, and insufficiently long maternity leave that is sometimes unpaid are some of the topics we hear about every day, but we don’t realize how important they are. I am especially speaking on behalf of my age group, since us high school girls have not encountered similar problems yet. We need to act immediately so as not to allow time and other “more important” news to replace them. I am happy to see that there are still young women, but also girls who are waking up or who have been awake for a long time and who look at the past as motivation for the future, and who are aware of everything that our predecessors invested for themselves and for us.
A thought crossed my mind that maybe in ten years, when I finish my education and have two or more academic degrees, my aunt or neighbor will ask me if I have someone, if I’m married, or what I’m waiting for. It’s too late for them to change, and too early for us to surrender to fate… Similar disagreements are put aside because even though it’s about two different points of view, two different systems, two different social arrangements, it’s still one fight and one goal. I empathized with every word the panelists said, even though most of them grew up in the other social system, because I know that what we have created is common and important to us and to them.
Although a lot has changed, the same questions are still relevant because the struggle and change that started five hundred years ago still continue today – the only thing that changes is us, the part that plays the most important role.
