Kanchan Choudhry Batthacharya

PETALING JAYA (March 14, 2010): A WOMAN is like a tea bag; you don’t know how strong she is until you put her in hot water, said Kanchan Choudhry Batthacharya, the first woman director-general of Indian Police Services at a time when women numbered two for every 97 men in the Indian police force.

Kanchan made the statement at the "Woman of Independence – the Power of One" conference held in conjunction with International Women’s Day recently.

The audience were mostly women civil servants and employees from the private sector. Unfortunately, glaringly absent were the women NGOs and the ministry that mattered, the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development.

Among those who spoke were a race car driver, a fighter jet pilot, a broadcast journalist, a high school Filipino teacher and three Arab women.

Kanchan, who is now retired, described her story as one of "progress".

Pretty, soft-spoken and clad in sari, her appearance belies a toughness necessary in her job.

"My problem was I was never tough.

"In my early years, I was once having an argument with one of the men when one of my subordinates told me, ‘Please move aside, I will talk to him man to man’.

"I didn’t know how to deal with that, but I learnt.

"My advice to women is to be a woman and be your true self," said Kanchan. She believes if a girl is brought up without discrimination, she will get far.

Being in one of the world’s most corrupt forces, Kanchan said she stood firm and kept clean, therefore people never dared.

"I am most ruthless when it comes to corruption. Even if the wife comes begging with the small child, my heart usually bleeds, but not when I am dealing with corruption. There is no forgiveness," she said Kanchan.

Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar

Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, Malaysia’s first woman head the Securities Commision (SC), spoke of how she had to demonstrate her abilities to be promoted amidst male prejudice,.

She made it, armed with the right tools and the right attitude,

"After you have done this, of course, there is no substitute for hard work," said Zarinah.

Dr Noeleen Heyzer, the first female executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, said it is important for agencies like UN to light that spark on gender equality.

"We have to break the silence," she said.

And break the silence Houzan Mahmoud of Iraq did when she revealed how the Iraqi wars had completely demeaned women to become almost non-citizens. Houzan, who is of Kurdish descent, said that she dreams of an Iraq for all religions, all sects and all races.

"The photographs of burqa-clad women weeping and screaming are the faces the media want the people to remember but the women of Iraq are much more and play a bigger role than that," she said, claiming the US had torn the country apart.

Toni Brendish, managing director of Danone Dumex Malaysia, emphasised the importance of communicating at the workplace.

"How do you know I have a learning disability? Maybe you have a teaching disability?" she said.

Major Patricia Yapp Syau Yin

The audience’s favourite, Major Patricia Yapp Syau Yin, Malaysia’s only active female fighter jet pilot, said deciding what you want was the first step.

Patricia – also known as Foxy in the force – said passing the IQ, physical, medical tests and interview was a breeze but the hardest test was telling her parents she was joining the air force.

Patricia said it is important that gender not be made an excuse and one has to learn how to work hard and maintain high discipline.

Her Venezuelan comrade in an almost all-male field, Milka Dunno, took the racing world by storm with her determination to succeed.

"You need to have passion which creates determination, and it is this determination which will help you achieve your goals," she said.

Her credentials as a qualified naval engineer with four masters degrees along with a string of impressive racing trophies lend a certain amount of weight to this advice.

Realizing the importance of education, she has created a programme inspiring children to aim high – called "The Milka Way".

Another woman who believes in education is Filipino teacher Dr Josette T. Biyo, after whom a planet has been named.

Dr Josette T. Biyo

Josette, a high school teacher, was cited for winning the 2002 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Louisville, Kentucky. She was the first Asian teacher to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award. Despite having a PhD in Biology, she has stuck to teaching high school students for US$300 a month.

"The nature is a living laboratory and everything is a blackboard," said Josette.

Al Jazeera English broadcast journalist, Filipino Veronica Pedrosa, has interviewed world leaders and conducted live coverage of the 2002 Bali bombings.

When Veronica first started at beginner level, she took her aunt’s advice that "it’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ with a pinch of salt.

"I thought, rubbish," she said.

"I can make it on performance alone, that’s all that matters.

"It’s an Asian trait to do things in an understated manner. We don’t want to look like we’re sucking up to the boss. However, I realised what my aunt said was right, it’s the image you project to other people that will put you in a position where your hard work can be recognised," said Veronica.

A woman with her own style, Dr Prithika Chary is India’s only woman neurosurgeon and neurologist. She used her life savings to open an epilepsy centre.

"Romance bloomed but I missed the bus. Then someone said that if I married, the man would die. I decided I was not going to kill anybody," she said jokingly of her marital status, which is of paramount importance in the Indian community.

Menopause was freedom for her in her fifth decade and she said: "In my sixth decade I am enjoying my singlehood and doing everything I wanted to do."

Jeannine Jennings, leader of IBM Global Financing for Sub Sahara, the Middle East and North Africa, talked of South African women who sparked the civil rights movement.

She pointed out that when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white man in 1955, it sparked the modern day civil rights movement.

"Now that is testament to how the power of one has the capacity to change the lives of millions," said Jennings, who hardly spoke about herself.

Fawzia Abdulhadi Abdulaziz rose through the ranks despite male prejudices to become a planning manager and now leads Shell’s blending function in the Omani Shell supply chain.

She recalled how her journey to the top was fraught with sacrifice. Finding her way in the world as a divorcee, she had to leave her daughter with her parents to pursue her masters in chemical engineering.

Arab entrepreneur Huda Janahi is ranked 46th on Forbes Arabia’s list of 50 Most Powerful Women in 2008.

A full-time housewife until her husband encouraged her to start the Global Cargo Services seven years ago with a capital of only 1,000 Bahrain dinars (RM8,900), Huda Janahi’s business is now worth over BD1 million.

One of the few women to conquer Mount Everest, Stacy Allison, summed up the speakers’ struggles when she said: "Standing at the top is easy; it is the journey to the top and coming down again that matters most."

Stacy, an American, had to live in an ice cave for five days while an avalanche made conditions outside unsurpassable, pee into a mineral water bottle in a sleeping bag in sub-zero temperatures, and traverse ominous precipices threatening to collapse.

As Faridah Hameed, a Malaysian motivator said, "It’s natural to dream, but to make dreams happen you have to stop dwelling on what you need and start focusing on how you are going to get it." -- theSun