March 8th has been officially celebrated by the United Nations since 1975. A child of the 80’s, I grew up in the United States without any awareness of this day and its historical significance. It was only while studying in Italy during university and again later when working in Serbia, that I first witnessed the showering of mimosas and the nation-wide attention to women’s rights in the media and in the workplace. It sure seemed like a pretty cool thing to me to celebrate. In Serbia, my team organized all-female hackathons, gave scholarships to girls at coding schools and celebrated our achievement of becoming a 50% female team in an engineering company.When I moved to France for my first job at a French company, I was so excited to help organize the company’s first ever March 8th celebration. I wanted to make a splash–maybe partner up with an association, make some cool t-shirts for everyone to wear, or have the whole company volunteer to inspire girls to study STEM. I was on fire with all of the awesome ways we were going to rock this day. I walked over to the marketing team with a spring in my step (and ok maybe even a slight strut), but my balloon was quickly harpooned.&nbsp; “Why would we make a big deal about this day?” “We don’t need to work on women’s equality.” “In France, we know that we are already equal.” “By calling attention to it, we’re only setting ourselves back.”I couldn’t believe it. I had such a drastically different point of view.&nbsp;I see this day as the opportunity to shout from the rooftops about what makes us special, to spread the word about the profound impact we have on the world–yes, through our contributions to medicine, technology, art and science, but also the impact we have on cultivating kindness and humanity in the world.&nbsp;It occurred to me that my female colleagues believed that by behaving conservatively and staying reserved, we mirrored the stereotype of the strong male leader. In this way, we would gain respect and, as a byproduct, equality. But women don’t need to mimic men to be strong women. We don’t need to be more masculine in our behavior, actions, or words to be respected and treated equally. Both masculine and feminine energy and traits exist in each of us. The balance of these is what makes a strong person or an exceptional leader. We should be able to confidently own this balance of our characters–male and female–and be darn proud of it. I would like to suggest that men strive to balance their character by learning from the women in their lives, by seeking to mirror the great women in history who have harnessed their female powers to move mountains.From a young age, women are taught and expected to show more empathy and tenderness, and to be more expressive than men. Let’s just say we’ve got more experience in this department. To all of the women out there, let’s help men out. Let’s teach them how to nourish their feminine energy so that they can be great leaders like us, and exceptional men, husbands, brothers and sons in our society. As a mother of four boys, I can tell you there is absolutely no natural lack of feminine energy that stems from pure gender. It’s aaaalllll cultural. Noone wants to be emotionally stunted.So let’s get together and celebrate our amazing female traits. Let’s buy flowers, wear rainbows–even sparkles if we like. Or if you prefer, we can stay demure in navy, but with the purpose of being proud of our strengths and positive qualities that we can shine on others.What does March 8th mean to you?&nbsp;

What Does March 8th Mean to You?

Catherine Simon