International Women’s Day marked with discussion on gender equality in community

The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and its division Lead hosted a series of panel discussions about gender equality in the Jewish community to mark International Women’s Day, which falls today.

CEOs, leaders and staff from different organisations were among the 60 participants to attend the event held in Mayfair yesterday.

The day, which featured three debates and Q&A sessions, ended on a panel discussion of how the #MeToo movement affected the lives of women in the Jewish community in the workplace and beyond.

The discussion, which was chaired by Yael Simon, from the Jewish Women’s Business Network, was led by the Jewish Chronicle’s Rosa Doherty and Naomi Dickson from the Jewish Women’s Aid.

Topics ranged from the importance of duty of care in creating safe workplaces for Jewish women to the panellists’ own experiences of gender roles in the community.  

The JLC says it has taken a note of suggestions made by panelists and participations which could help improve the lives of Jewish women in the workplace.

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“We are pleased to be leading the way in creating the space for conversations on how we can better balance policy and culture for women in the workplace,” said Claudia Mendoza, director of policy and public affairs at the JLC.

“This event was another step towards making our community a better place for women to work in.”

Michelle Janes, executive director of Lead, said: “Achieving the right balance between policy and culture can be critical in creating an environment to enable strong leadership development in our community.

“We want to see more diversity in positions of leadership and fewer situations where leadership is compromised due to gender or any other factor.”

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