There are ideas that sound good on posters.
Slogans that look slick on marketing material.
Themes that make sense in theory.
But every now and then, one arrives that lands in the body…. because you’ve lived it.
This year’s International Women’s Day theme is “Balance the Scales.”
A call to confront unfairness, discrimination, and violence against women and girls, and to focus on what actually advances gender justice.
And as soon as I read it, I felt something inside me go still.
Because I didn’t learn about equity in a classroom or a boardroom.
I learned about while living in a mud hut, in a remote village in East Africa.
Women With Ancient Hands
I was young when I travelled to Tanzania and began working alongside tribal women.
Women whose hands carried generations of knowledge, ancient crafts like, pottery, weaving and beadwork. It is artistry passed down like inheritance.
Their work was extraordinary.
Not hobby-level or cute.
It was skilled and intricate and culturally rich. It was also created and used in everyday life.
But what struck me most wasn’t their talent.
It was the reality that talent alone doesn’t change a woman’s life.
Because these women weren’t lacking ability.
They were lacking access.
Access to markets.
Access to money.
Access to visibility.
Access to opportunity.
They were living proof of something we still see today:
Women don’t rise because they’re capable.
Women rise when the world around them allows their capability to be valued.
Equity isn’t about telling women to try harder.
It’s about changing the conditions that keep their gifts hidden.
The Other Side of the Scales
Some years later, I revisited another kind of inequity.
A darker one.
As a child, in my family of origin there had been anger, violence, and fear. Now, as an adult woman with children of my own, I was experiencing intimate partner violence.
And what I want to say, gently but clearly, is this:
Violence is not only physical.
It is psychological. Emotional. Financial and spiritual. It’s hidden in the way money is used and abused, the way power is shared or wielded, the way we feel safe to be in our homes, our relationships and our skin.
Violence does not only just bruise the skin.
It bruises our inner compass.
It slowly teaches a woman to second-guess her instincts.
To doubt her perceptions.
To override the quiet voice inside her that says, this isn’t right.
And this is where the scales become dangerously unbalanced.
Because when a woman loses trust in herself, she becomes easier to control.
Easier to silence.
Easier to manipulate.
Easier to keep small.
Often, from the outside, she still looks like she’s coping.
She’s still functioning.
Still showing up.
But she is often straddling a chasm of deep struggle
But inside, she is fractured.
Why I Do the Work I Do
Those two experiences of living alongside the village women with ancient crafts and supporting them through a fair-trade enterprise, and my own journey through escaping family violence, have shaped the work I do today.
They taught me that empowerment is not a motivational slogan.
Empowerment is practical.
It is access.
It is safety.
It is education.
It is support.
It is the restoration of self-trust.
And this is why I now guide women to strengthen their three great inner resources:
Intellect — the ability to think clearly and strategically.
Emotional intelligence — the ability to name what’s happening within and respond with maturity.
Intuition — the deep inner knowing that so often gets overridden in women who have spent years surviving, performing, pleasing, or holding it all together.
When women reconnect to these parts of themselves, something profound happens.
They stop abandoning their ideas, dreams and the way they care for themselves.
They stop shrinking.
They stop apologising for needing more.
And they begin to make choices that change their lives.
Balancing the Scales Begins Here
Yes, equity must be systemic.
It must be legal.
It must be economic.
It must be cultural.
But it must also be personal a sense of inner safety and sovereignty for all women to make choices and live with dignity and truth in who they are.
Because the world changes when women feel safe enough to be fully themselves.
And the scales begin to balance when women stop doubting their worth, their instincts, and their right to take up space.
This I know for sure:
When a woman remembers who she is, she becomes unstoppable.
And when enough women remember, the world has no choice but to change.
Equity is not an idea. It’s not a hashtag. It’s the difference between being heard or dismissed, safe or afraid, supported or alone. It’s what happens when women are given access, protection, opportunity and respect, and when they are supported to trust themselves again.
This International Women’s Day, may we not only speak about change… may we become it.
About Chandu
Chandu Bickford is a mentor, writer, educator and speaker who guides women to unite their intellect, emotional intelligence and intuition so they can navigate seasons of change feeling calm, clear and courageous.
Drawing on more than two decades of experience across business, leadership and education, she supports individuals, groups and organisations to strengthen leadership, self-trust and thoughtful decision-making in both their professional and personal lives.
If you’d like to receive future reflections and insights on leadership, intuition and the inner landscape of change, you’re warmly invited to join her newsletter.
