For All Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment. 

I was incredibly surprised when I got ACRRM’s request to write about this year’s International Women’s Day #ForAllWomenAndGirls. Especially when I realised my goal was “to inspire our members and readers”. FYI, past contributions have been written by Kate Kloza, Sarah Chalmers, and Ruth Stewart. Talk about standing on the shoulders of giants! Sure, no pressure [insert nervous laughter here]. Shortly after, though, I encountered a quote by Alice Walker that made me reflect: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any" - I didn’t want to do that.

Still, many questions did rush through my mind in a split second: “How does this lady even know who I am? Who told her I could do this? Am I about to embarrass myself AND the College for daring to say ‘yes’?”. Does anyone else have such ‘auto-pilot’ thoughts when presented with the risk of being seen? Or should I say: when bestowed with the opportunity to voice and share one’s views and values without having to dig through the trenches? Most of the opportunities I had in life were similar to Shirley Chisholm’s experience: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair”. I wondered how a male counterpart would feel about receiving the same call. And if my experience was an exclusive or a shared one. I suspected a significant proportion of female doctors might have had a similar observation (and if I dare to dream big enough, maybe some of my male colleagues might have observed these dynamics as well).

I am an Australian migrant (from a non-English speaking country), who has dared to also be a doctor here and is still struggling to balance career and family responsibilities. In my experience, it feels naive to believe I have the same ‘rights’ or that ‘equality’ is available to me. And I most definitely do not feel ‘empowered’. I don’t have the appropriate labels that would grant me these, at least not by the generosity of “the system”. I am acutely aware that I am assigned to the International Medical Graduate (IMG) group, the Female Doctor group, and the “too nice” group (which I have later learned implied there must be ‘something wrong’ with me if I ‘need’ to be ‘so nice’). Newsflash: the ordinary Brazilian person is ‘very nice’, I am just an ‘average nice’ person, considering Brazilian standards, and there is nothing wrong with being nice. Please travel around and live a little, if you may.

It is likely impossible (or at least very difficult) to measure “the cost” of constantly dealing with the mismatch between what is “the Brazilian normal” and “the Australian normal” for all things social human interaction-wise. It can be a bit overwhelming from time to time. And don’t get me wrong, I am not playing the victim here, I am well aware of all the privileges I have had that allowed me to even get this far. And I continue to follow Brené Brown’s advice, I don’t go “walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong", as I learned I will always find it. However, “the world” keeps hitting me in the face with all these messages about how I “don’t fit in”, you know… No research effort was required. Are you feeling inspired yet?

Okay, okay, this is not to say we haven't made progress as a global human society, because we have! Let me tell you how far we have come since the publication of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. After all, 2025 is the 30th anniversary of the most progressive blueprint for advancing women’s rights ever written, and these warrants celebrating! The Beijing Declaration was the first global policy document on women that included a specific focus on girls’ rights. Before 1995, only 12 countries had legal sanctions against domestic violence. Today, there are 1,583 legislative measures in place across 193 countries, including 354 targeting domestic violence specifically. There are also 112 countries with National Action Plans on women, peace, and security now, which is a significant increase from only 19 in 2010.

Objectively, progress has been made. Then why does it still feel like women are stuck in the “not as important” box? Well, I suspect it might have to do with deeply rooted gendered norms (if you know me personally, you could probably guess what I am about to say next). Yes, my archenemy, the patriarchy. And let me make this abundantly clear, this is not a “personal impression”. I will give only one example to illustrate my point, although I could give you many more. In the Language Bias in Performance Feedback 2022 Data Analysis and Survey Results, Textio found strong patterns of inequity in job performance feedback.

 “Both men and women received feedback about the quality of their work. However, the women were also more likely to receive feedback about their personality. Language like abrasive, difficult, friendly, and helpful showed up in the majority of women’s reviews, but in very few of the men’s.”

Women have been (and continue to be) expected to behave within their allocated gender norms, meaning: the ones responsible for soothing and comforting, planning and caring for others, nurturing and appeasing, always so accommodating and passive. Women are trained to care for others from play dates all the way to “how to dress for your job interview”.

It encompasses all aspects of our lives in society. However, if women take on leadership roles that require them to be assertive, direct, confident, decisive, or emphatic, the backlash is certain, as these women are behaving in contradiction to the gender norms expected of them. It’s no surprise that Textio found women are 7x more likely to be described as “opinionated,” and 11x more likely to be described as “abrasive" when compared to men. This is the world we live in. We have to harvest the stealth strength hidden within gender norms and use it to power change. Women's empowerment is likely to foster improvements for all, as we move towards equitable development of the society.

Dr Kristin Neff pointed out this hidden gem in her research around self-compassion. Women are excellent in practicing and giving compassion to others, now we need to learn how to include ourselves on the receiving end of this. Changing our inner dialogue to sound more like what we would say to a dear friend might be the first step towards a revolutionary transformation in the mindset of so many in our midst. Women are as worthy of receiving tender self-compassion as everyone else. But even more importantly, we must learn to stand tall, say ‘no’, draw boundaries, and fight injustice. We may be experts on tender self-compassion, but we have a long way to go in developing fierce self-compassion (you know, like the Momma Bear who ferociously protects her cubs). In the same way that Yin and Yang are opposite but complementary forces that together form a whole, we need to give ourselves our fair share of both tenderness and fierceness if we are to bring up any change.

Finding such equilibrium in a significantly polarised world is no easy task. And I would like to point out that advocacy is needed if any further change is to happen. In terms of healthcare, change is ongoing within the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM), for example, with the work from the Respectful Workplaces Committee, the publication of the HEART course, and fruitful partnerships, such as The Better Culture project, spearheaded by Dr Jillann Farmer.

If you made it this far, I invite you to continue to walk towards gender equality, with both tender and fierce self-compassion, with joy for all the progress made so far, and with eyes wide open for the challenges ahead. I hope we may have the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference between the two. Most importantly, I hope that we continue to push on. We are the gift we give to the world, we should be celebrated for being our true selves, enriching the world with our uniqueness. And if all this conversation felt like new information to you, I leave you with the wisdom of Maya Angelou: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better”.

See you in Perth for RMA25!

The women who have inspired me to write this article:

1. Dr Kate Kloza - MBBS, FACRRM, Antarctic Medical Practitioner and Rural Generalist with the Australian Antarctic Division, and also Rural Registrar of the Year (2016).
2. Dr Sarah Chalmers - BSc (Hons) PGDipEd MBBS FRACGP FACRRM, and also Past President of ACRRM (2020-2022).
3. A/Prof Ruth Stewart - MBBS, FACRRM, PhD (Flin), DRANZCOG. Associate Professor of Rural Medicine, Director of Rural Clinical Training and Support at James Cook University. Ruth was on the ACRRM Board from 2002 to 2012 as director for Women in Rural Practice, Victorian Director, and Vice President, and also awarded the 2024 ACRRM Life Fellowship.
4. Alice Walker - American novelist and short story writer
5. Shirley Chisholm - Former United States Representative
6. Brené Brown - researcher and storyteller, courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy scholar. American academic and podcaster, visiting professor in management at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin
7. Dr Kristin Neff - Associate Professor of Human Development and Culture, Educational Psychology Department, University of Texas at Austin
8. Dr Jillann Farmer - MBBS, fellowships from RACGP and RACMA, Medical Board of Queensland and Medicare Australia, United Nations Medical Director from 2012–20
9. Maya Angelou - Poet, dancer, singer, activist, and scholar.