Think equal, build smart, innovate for change
Transcript for Think equal, build smart, innovate for change video
Leslie MacLean
"There are some who think that equality for women will come by squishing men; that women will rise up because we've squashed men down to be shorter. I would argue that equality will be when we're all just equal. If you think about it, even the theme of International Women's Day is tied into the idea of binary gender identity, which is something, that may not be relevant for everyone in the room or for everyone we know. So I would just go back to, I think, the equal is all around saying: Who am I? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How can I work with others to do something interesting and important? And for me, that applies just as much personally as professionally.
Chantal Maheu
The notion that we will all have opportunities and it's up to us to seize them, like I think there's a false notion there too. And if we start examining those I think then it helps us to have success. This government has put in place a lot of initiatives to try to change things structurally.
We won't achieve equality for women as long as men don't have equality to do something other than what we expect them to do. So our expectations of men are just as much barriers to them as our expectations of women; we need to be able to see all of this.
I am encouraging you to be yourself as much as possible. Bring the best that you have to your work and question your own assumption about what you can do and what you cannot do; because you probably can do more than you think, and you should kind of try to push the envelope to see, to see how much the system can support you as you're doing this.