FEATURE STORY
TOGETHER WE STAND
As part of International Women’s Day, a range of events across the region is encouraging Sunshine Coast locals to get involved in celebrating and advocating for women. WORDS: Roxanne McCarty-O’Kane.
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“The key is not to just blame men. We also need to work more on women empowering other women, because the lack of it is a huge problem” Husna Pasha Image: Elio Rulli from Studio House.
10 My Weekly Preview | March 2, 2018
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nternational Women’s Day has traditionally been a solid 24 hours dedicated to giving the women’s rights movement a platform in which to discuss, debate and an advocate for gender equality. But this year, the t Sunshine Coast has a host of events kick kicking off on March 1 and continuing through throug to the March 9. The first International Women’s Day Intern (IWD) was held in 1911, yet the World Economic Forum’ Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report found gender parity is still more than gen 200 years away, sparking the theme for this sp year’s IWD, #PressforProgress. #Press With global activism through the #MeToo ac and #TimesUp campaigns, there has never cam been a better time for members of the community to work wo through the challenges, but the key speake speakers at this year’s events on the Coast have all had a unified voice when they say this is a journey women should not jo have to travel alon alone. Encouraging m men to be part of the solution has been a strong focus this year, with gold Logie winner, Victorian Australian w of the Year 2018 and an Love Your Sister founder Samuel Johnson the guest speaker at Sunshine Coast Co Business Women’s Network IWD breakfast on March 6 I trainer Paul Tribe and leadership lead taking up a position among a talented line-up of ladies in talent WINDO’s Let’s Hear it for The WIN Girls evening. Gir Also appearing at the WINDO (Women Initiating W New Directions Organisation) Ne event on March 8 is talk show eve one-time co-host of The host, o Project, t relationship management officer and mum-of-two Husna Pasha. Pasha says the recent social Ms Pash campaigns coming from media camp Hollywood to rraise awareness of sexual poor treatment of women harassment and p right direction. are steps in the rig “It shows that people are ready to come out and be brave, and when one woman herself, she creates an decides to back he others to follow suit and shows opening for other us to stand up as a group,” that it’s okay for u extraordinarily proud of these she says. “I am ext Hollywood women wome who have found the power to come out ou and speak, even when they have so much to lose. There is so much more for us to gain because of their actions.” encourages all women to be Ms Pasha enco aspects of their life. She was on brave in all aspect track to follow the advice of her traditional to “get a degree, get Indian Muslim parents pa have five babies, married, get a mortgage, mo drop dead”. raise them and dr what they classed as a “That was wha
successful life,” Ms Pasha tells My Weekly Preview. But after winning a competition to co-host The Project in 2015, Ms Pasha was emboldened to create her own live talk show with a goal to inform people through entertainment, and in just a few short years, it has evolved into much more. “You don’t see ‘moozie’ [Muslim] girls out there carrying on like pork chops, pardon the pun, and being humorous and being comfortable with being a little bit of a bogan,” she says. “I get up on stage and dance hip-hop and laugh and scream and shout and make jokes. Some people and minority men would say because I don’t wear a hijab, I shouldn’t be going around calling myself a moozie. But you know what? I am more than comfortable with my religion and the way I practise it and when people see that, they lose the fear they might have.” Ms Pasha now sells out her interactive live shows, is in high demand as a motivational speaker, has a steady relationship management role and has become the breadwinner in her home. And her husband Nick Rangasamy-Shakeel is comfortable with that. “It takes a strong man to be behind a successful woman and we need to give them credit where it is due,” she says. “Women are now very much capable of looking after themselves and gone are the days when our role was to cook, be the cleaner and the housewife. We can now do all of those things and so much more, but because we have come so far, we have to be careful not to disempower men at the same time.” Coming from a corporate background, Ms Pasha says there is undoubtedly a “bamboo ceiling” in Australia, where there are plenty of women in middle to senior management, but very few in the executive level and, on average, women are still paid less than men. “The key is not to just blame men. We also need to work more on women empowering other women, because the lack of it is a huge problem,” she says. “Working in corporate, I have seen a lot of bitchiness and competitiveness among women, where women feel overprotective of their positions because they have worked so hard to get where they are, and this leads to them putting other women in their place by belittling them. We will take a huge step forward when women start supporting each other.” Ms Pasha says this competitiveness filters through all areas of society, characterised in the working mum versus the stay-at-home mum debate, which continues to rage with neither side holding back on their criticism of the other. This is why she has made it the mission of her talk show, The Husna Pasha Show, to myweeklypreview.com.au
26/02/2018 2:26:17 PM