It was an honor for the Nova Women in Business Club to conduct an interview with Silvia Rodriguez who is Executive Director at the Estoril Conferences at Nova SBE. The aim of the conference is to inspire through well-known speakers and to push conversations. Topics relate usually to global challenges and how to make a positive impact in today’s world. The next Estoril conference will happen September 2022 and will focus on the purpose generation. Silvia’s role is to guarantee the leadership and strategy implementation to engage with the youth and upscale the event internationally, creating post-event activities that lead to positive change. In the interview she shared some experiences from her different jobs and how she feels about being a mother at the workplace and expectations women have to deal with at a day-to-day basis.
Silvia is a mother of three sons, she argues that her career decisions have been influenced by her parenting role in the past. She values flexible work and autonomy at the workplace as she tries to not only do a good job but wants at the same time to be a good mother to her boys. For instance, she highlights that a four-day work week is necessary to get all work at home done and the importance of saying “no” to guarantee we don’t extend our limits. As a result, she adapts her life in order to live up to that parenting role.
In parenthood usually one person takes the “main” role at home. Often men in a partnership are the ones who take care about the finances and women engage at home and in taking care of the children. Till today it is mostly women who stay at home, however she observes that more and more men do so as well. She claims that it is not necessarily a women’s role. However, she highlights how valuable the parenting role is. According to Silvia, women and men should value their children more, rather than seeing them as a burden. There is so much to learn from children and they really can improve well-being and happiness so much of the people surrounding them.
Furthermore, she highlights the struggles women have today to live up to so many roles. Not only do they need to be good mothers and take care of their parents but also need to look good at all times etc.. Often it is not recognized that they still need to live a life for themselves and improve their well-being. As a result, women really find themselves in a position where they serve others and have to limit their desires and dreams to make everyone happy around them. While she claims that often men have time for taking care of themselves, e.g. going to the gym. Even though there is a change away from women being the only ones doing unpaid home labor, a better future can only be secured if the next generations are better educated. Therefore, role models are important and male children need to grow up with the perception that women are not necessarily the ones that fulfill caretaker roles. She highlights that she really tries that her sons have a different perception of women than older generations.
Even though the current situation can be frustrating in order to change things women need to stand up for themselves more. There is still a pay gap which results in limited options for women which doesn’t give freedom of choice and independence to many of them. Women need to get more active in order to close that gap. Furthermore, women need to learn to network rather than seeing peers as competition. She thinks that often women limit their opportunities by comparing to much rather than supporting one another. Finally, women need to stop thinking they might not be “good enough”. In fact she claims women might even be the better leaders as they are used to juggle so many things at the same time. As a result, women really need to figure out their strengths and stand up for themselves more.
Thank you Silvia for your time and valuable insights on the topic. We wish you all the best for the future!
Written by Maren Keßler, Fiammetta Gindro, Karolina Niziołek, Clara Voss
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