an interview with mona sinha
Written by Mona Sinha, Global Executive director, Equality Now/ Board Chair, Women Moving Millions & ERA FFWE/ Executive Producer, Disclosure.
1. Why is “an approach to leadership that resonates with women” needed?
Since the beginning of time, women have nurtured and upheld the values that have bound their tribes and communities.
Gender roles in society are a construct of human evolution. Earliest societies in Paleolithic and Neolithic times were egalitarian and gender hierarchies did not exist. Women were respected as leaders of the community. Their competence as leaders was “based on their skills, arts and techniques, knowledge regarding the traditions of the clan and experience of the correlation between the natural and social worlds and the cycles of life.”
Patriarchy overthrew this model over time. Due to the loss of arable land through lack of rain, entire clans were forced to move and acquire new habitat through warfare and conquest. Male structures of dominance overtook peaceful lifestyles. Displacement led to the collapse of native agricultural societies as men became the providers of food through hunting as agriculture became more difficult. Peaceful communities were destroyed. Colonization amplified these norms across the world.
This new code of dominance destroyed matriarchal societies organized along the principles of equality, natural authority, and peace and led to the decline of women’s authority.
What has existed before can be created again by shifting priorities to sustainable communities over hierarchical dominance. We are witness to the double burden that women face with child rearing and earning a living. Shared leadership and recognition of women as competent leaders can be prioritized through linked relationships. Men do not simply have to be allies, they need to be an integral part of the system of family and society. An integrative approach based on values and rewarded as such is a form of inclusive leadership that centers families and communities over political and corporate hierarchies.
2. Halfway through the Expedition what are you uncovering?
We deeply understand that leadership is not about one but many. We seek to serve those on the frontlines of movements that drive change and create healthy democracies. Almost every successful democracy has been formed by powerful feminist movements that stand up against inequality. Women know that we are more powerful when we stand together, rise in our own collective voice and bring others along by the power of many.
Leadership is collective. Leadership is Care. Leadership is Collaborative. These values coalesce in our ability to step into our power and own it; power that enables us as leaders to hone our capacity to shape people’s lives. As we do so, we are able to overturn the rules, norms, and stories that reinforce inequality based on gender, sexuality, race, religion, caste, class and so much more.
Feminist leadership is linked, not ranked. Across the world, we share experiences and by linking them, we can create powerful solutions that come from everywhere, not just the industrialized nations or the global North.
Feminist leadership is recognizing that although layers of experience, culture, technological and other innovations shape us and our societies to value progress in economic statistics, we know that real growth happens when we center the margins, allowing every human to have economic agency and potential to thrive. Leadership is about lighting the torch of the generations to come so that they may continue to blaze the path that we forge, just as we did before them in honoring our foremothers.
To read more about Mona, click here