Female leaders Sarah Chen-Spellings, Kay McArdle, Manisha Wijesinghe, and Alicia Lui discuss the relationship between women and the economy
During the Tatler Gen.T Summit, which took place in Hong Kong from November 9-10 this year, Sarah Chen-Spellings, co-founder and managing partner of Beyond The Billion, “the premier mobiliser of funds fuelling women-led innovation”, moderated the Beyond the F Word: Harnessing the Power of The Female Economy panel.
The discussion featured Kay McArdle, founder and director of Equal Justice, which helps disadvantaged people find solutions to legal and other problems; Manisha Wijesinghe, the executive director of Help for Domestic Workers, which ensures Hong Kong’s foreign domestic helpers are given the protection they deserve; and Alicia Lui, founder of Women In Sports Empowered Hong Kong, which empowers women and girls through sports.
Here are the highlights from that panel.
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On how getting women in sport is only the beginning
“Sports is really just part of society. And so when you get women and girls participating in sports—getting them engaged in the whole ecosystem of what the sports industry is—you’re really getting them involved in society. [As an example], the US ... is investing into women’s leagues, football clubs; you have stadiums that are purpose-built for women’s sports. We don’t have anything of that nature yet. There’s also sponsorship money. So much is going into how you raise the visibility of women’s sports. I don’t necessarily want to think of it [women’s sport] as [something] segregated by gender. In Asia, the whole sports industry still [offers many] untapped opportunities.” — Alicia Lui
On how migrant domestic workers, many of whom are women, are the backbone of our economy—and the importance of raising awareness of it
“One of our biggest priorities is to make sure that the conversation around the care economy becomes a priority. When I was in my own country [Sri Lanka], I used to see the impact that migrant workers would have on the economy, individual families and making sure that their communities are able to succeed. Ten years ago, when I came to Hong Kong, I also saw the other side of the impact that they have in their destination countries. I’m sure many of us who are sitting here today are sitting here because there is somebody [a migrant domestic worker they employ] taking our kids to school, making our lunches, taking care of the elderly or sick [in the family]. What was so surprising for me was the fact that we were not talking about that. We were talking about issues related to domestic workers as extremely separate to the issues related to our economies and our society, whether it’s in Hong Kong, or in the Asia Pacific region.” — Manisha Wijesinghe