Zacharoula Sidiropoulou, Senior Consultant Breast Surgical Oncologist at Hospital São Francisco Xavier, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“I recently joined Women in Global Health, WGH Lusophone Community, and I did so with a very clear conviction: global health cannot be truly global if women’s voices are still treated as optional, symbolic, or secondary.
A recent paper in The Lancet Global Health, well spotted by Luchuo Engelbert Bain, captures this problem with painful accuracy. Too often, ‘global’ health spaces are dominated by the same countries, the same institutions, and the same profiles of authority.
Women are invited, yes, but not always to lead. Sometimes they are asked to moderate panels they are fully qualified to speak on.
Sometimes they are included as a sign of diversity, but not given real influence over the agenda.
That is not equity. That is decoration.
For me, Women in Global Health matters because representation is not about filling a seat. It is about shifting power, recogniզing expertise, and ensuring that women across countries, languages, generations, and professional backgrounds are heard as decision-makers, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and leaders.
The WGH Lusophone Community has a particularly important role to play. Brings diverse realities, from Portugal to Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Timor-Leste, and diasporas.
Our experiences must not sit at the margins of global health conversations. They must help shape them.
I believe in WGH because the future of global health must be more inclusive, more just, and more honest about who gets to speak, who gets listened to, and who gets to decide.
Women should not simply be present in global health.
Women must lead it.”
Other articles featuring Zacharoula Sidiropoulou on OncoDaily.