All male panel gives out ‘Best Female Award’

To honour the women who have proved to be young and promising from different walks of life, Beti Foundation along with Tara Barta jointly organised the "Best Female Award".

The press conference announcing the award was organised at a city hotel, sponsored by leading businesses eager to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the year nears a close.

Managing director of Beti, Chet Hassan informed that the categories would be "entrepreneur", "sports", "agriculture", "education", "social welfare", "culture", "technology", "architect", "writer", "journalist", "development sector", and "corporate".

"We put everything in quotation marks because we know for a fact that not all women are deserving to be the 'best female'. We want everyone to know that they are the 'special females' chosen to our liking," said Hassan.

Asked about the judging criteria for each category, Hassan said, "You know, empowerment…and stuff."

Spokesperson of Tara Barta, Maldeen Iblish said, "We want to honour those women who, despite the obstacles we meticulously put out for them, have still remained steadfast to their objective. Some of them even stopped going to HR. Now, if that's not growth, I don't know what is.

"We want to create a fearless generation of women, who will speak at meetings as our female colleagues and occasionally we will actually listen to them.

"After all, what is a woman but a 'woah, man'."

"Women are required, women are needed. But all this talk about empowerment and support is becoming less and less relevant as days go by," said Mokles Ali, senior executive at Tara Barta.

"We have over 30 women working in our office, whereas before, we didn't even hire women," he said, adding that nowadays women are really trying their best to prove that they too have the potential to make it in life, but they (women) still have a lot left to prove.

"We put everything in quotation marks because we know for a fact that not all women are deserving to be the 'best female'. We want everyone to know that they are the 'special females' chosen to our liking."

Meanwhile, Rehana Parvin, senior researcher at youth organisation "Build Your Voice" turned on her mic, with a twitch in her eye.

The speakers at the panel seemed bamboozled seeing that a woman was sitting at the table.

As Rehana started to speak, Iblish interrupted her saying, "Oh apa, you came? We didn't see you there.

Ignoring the comment, Rehana said, "Women need to have a voice in decision-making. There is a need for increasing women's seat at the table.."

Before she could even finish her sentence, Maldeen said, "Sorry apa before you proceed, I just want to add that you look really beautiful today.

"Thank you for coming. See this diversity? You can witness the progress right on this stage," he added.

The application process for the Best Female Awards starts Jan 1.

*Suck-ups will be highly regarded in our selection process.