Zeynep Dereli
Open Space Member

Dear Openspacers,

I wanted to share my views on gender equality and what the digital age has to offer. Your views on the issue will be much appreciated.

We are living in a digital age, the age that requires us to be constantly learning and reskilling. This is quite a critical issue. And women tend to be better at it than men. We are multi-functional because we have so many different roles, we are used to it. Childbearing is one example, I've been through it twice - it is ground-shaking and you need to be very adaptive to go through it. So, women, from a physical perspective, are much more ready for change than men are. Men face very little physical changes. Women have this adaptability capability which makes us more competitive in the digital age. We are able to change, re-skill ourselves and adapt. Men - less so. And until now, until the digital age, because of our lack of physical strength, we were at a slight disadvantage to men since much of the workforce required physical strength that women do not have. Now is the time for women to shine and many men across the world are seeing this major shift. And they are getting worried that women are going to take over the jobs they currently hold. Many people still believe that there is a limited amount of jobs and, if women are better suited for them, we need to prevent them from taking them from us. We need to switch to growth mentality. We need to change the way that we think about labor. We need to use our entrepreneurial mindset, use technology as a multiplier for the new businesses we set up. We need to bake new cakes, we need to do this together. We need to show to the rest of society, especially men and those women who oppose women's workforce participation because they fear their husbands would lose their jobs, we will increase the number of jobs that are out there, and increase prosperity together.