I gave women the opportunity to win tickets to my conference by entering a Giveaway contest. 

They had to write an essay about the reasons they’d like to attend. I read some beautiful write-ups and below is one of them. 

I would like to attend the conference because it is a conference of women for women. A great opportunity to rub minds with intellectual ladies. It is a chance to learn from other women who are doing amazing things in making our world a better place. Personally, I like the topic because it stimulated some curiosity in me.

Why should a woman be with guilt? Why should it have to be so hard to be a woman? Why do we need to exert more energy at doing exactly the same as the opposite sex simply because of our gender? I have found it hard to delete from my memory the perception that a supposed learned colleague of mine shared about women. He believes the place of a woman should be in the kitchen, subservient to her husband, whose voice should not be heard without his permission. The guy believes it is a failure of on the part of society for a woman to be a leader of a nation. Anathema. Not me.

I refuse to be sorry or apologetic for not conforming to the norm. I refuse to be sorry for choosing to chase after my dreams and not feel like it is so wrong. My place is not limited to the kitchen, my place is as far as my mind can possibly conceive.

I am a woman who is not shackled by the shadows of the past but one forging towards the resplendent bright horizon of a glorious future, hand in hand with other like minded women who will ditch the norm, break the biased molds of wrong societal expectations and embrace the fullness of their destiny. I am a woman without guilt on a mission to give my very best to my world.

  By Dr. Funmi Omole @thewritingdoc