There were cheers, tears and rapt silence as 11 women laid bare their stories of triumph, tribulation and unique innovation to a packed auditorium at the first edition of TEDxGatewayWomen Conference in India held in Mumbai on Friday.
In keeping with the spirit of TED’s mission — ‘Ideas Worth Spreading’ — the TEDxGatewayWomen had “empowered women” sharing the moments and ideas that initiated action towards change. Be it Justice Leila Seth persisting with a cynical senior advocate to bag an opportunity to work under him as a young lawyer and then go on to become the first woman Chief Justice in India or Canadian artist and scientist Ariel Garten’s general curiosity about how things work, which led her to “democratise access to our brains” with her wearable technology, the stories were inspiring.
Fighting anxiety “I grew up knowing that we all had the freedom to create the world that we want to see,” said Ariel Garten explaining how that led her to create Muse, a gadget that reads brain waves to help users understand the working of their mind thereby reducing stress, anxiety and increasing focus.
She co-presented along with her visual artist mother Vivian Reiss who gave her perspective on embracing joy and beauty. While Padma Shri awardee and Director of SEWA Reemaben Nanavaty, and economist-farmer-activist Chetna Gala Sinha, shared their ideas of social change, classical dancer and choreographer Ananda Shankar Jayant shared her personal experience to show how it is possible to “relieve passion from the burden of livelihood.”
The other speakers were co-founder, CEO at Mad Street Den & Mad Street Lab Ashwini Asokan, playback singer and soprano Natalie Di Luccio, co-founder of Menstrupedia Aditi Gupta, and founder and publisher of White Print — India’s first English lifestyle magazine for the visually impaired in Braille — Upasana Makati.Amid the line up of powerful women, there was one speaker who stood out for taking up the cause of men. “I am misunderstood as being against women. No, I am just against injustice,” explained journalist and documentary filmmaker Deepika Bhardwaj who spoke about how laws created to protect women are sometimes abused to make false implication against men. “The laws turn a man into a criminal merely based on the statement of a woman,” she said citing examples of several recent cases. Deepika also showcased the trailer of her documentary called Martyrs of Marriage, which is ‘a commentary on the issue of Men’s right and abuse of one-sided gender centric laws in the Indian Penal Code’
