Setting a new world order

The words of F Scott Fitzgerald kept buzzing in my ears, like an uncomfortably close mosquito, last week in Deauville. This delicious city on the Atlantic in Normandy is the playground for rich and famous Parisians. A little over two hours from Paris and you are in a sort of heaven-on-earth for the gilded: cavernous casinos, golf courses with customised golf clubs, polo grounds, stud farms, regal palaces, horses on the beach.  No wonder those Fitzgeraldian lines kept popping up: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.”

This most often quoted bit of wisdom from the American novelist still resonates generations later. And perhaps even more today, when the global financial crisis has so many of us (nations, corporations and individuals) in a tailspin. So, it was strangely appropriate that this city by the ocean should be the venue for the global meeting of the fourth edition of the Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society. There were over a thousand women. And yes a sprinkling of male suits too.

Aude Zieseniss de Thuin, the charmingly imposing president of the Women’s Forum and a successful businesswoman decided about six years ago to build an organisation that would evolve along the lines of a “Davos for women,” but with a difference: business networking and brainstorming over the economy would not be the only goal. The human factor had to be a major part of the agenda.

 Women CEOs, ministers and politicians, cutting-edge scientists, social scientists, academics, environmentalists, artists, activists and NGOs gathered from over a 100 countries for three days to do some brainstorming, and soul-searching on how to make the world a better place in which to do business and to live in. 

All that Deauville symbolises would soon be out of reach for millions unless there was more equitable sharing of global resources and talent. More room had to be made on the high table where leaders of the corporate world and political leaders got together to find solutions. Leaders had to go beyond conventional solutions to deal with the current turmoil that was likely to accelerate. Actually, you now needed a larger table to accommodate those from emerging countries: the fates of the rich and the poorer nations were increasingly and inextricably linked. The subject of diversity played like a refrain throughout the conference — diversity of all kinds, of nationalities, backgrounds, cultures and gender. 

The Forum was a call to arms for women. They comprise half the global talent pool; yet are far from present at the forefront of the economic and social scene. The men, many women speakers said, had got the world into such a sorry state that it was time for women to clean up the mess. In a poll conducted by Ifop,  quoted at the conference, one of the conclusions to emerge was that while 35 per cent of the women believed that we were going though a moral crisis, 47 per cent thought the crisis was a combination of moral and technological factors.

The battle cry was not for a war between the sexes: the mantra below the emotionally-charged words was “pragmatic feminism.” Men and women had to come up with out-of-the-box solutions.  

What is exceptional about Deauville is that it wasn’t just the business acumen of women or their performance-enhancing capabilities or even potential for being game-changers but the celebration of womanhood itself. On tap, free, in the delightfully named ‘Discovery Corner’ you could get lessons in beauty, a massage, get a little aroma therapy, visit the ‘Happiness Corner’ and have your hair done. You could reinvent yourself, as most of the large delegation of desi women did: India was the focus country this year — it was China in 2007.

The desis also knew how to have fun. During a Cartier reception with an Indian theme (obviously maharajahs and jewels) they floored the other guests by dancing boisterously to Kajra re. The Cartier men were cajoled into playing the long number and by the end many delegates abandoned their champagne flutes and danced uninhibitedly.
Email: jain_madhu@hotmail.com