Aurélie Salvairee: BALANCE THE WORLD. Tactics to help you launch a gender revolution. This is a feminist guide for millennials. Let’s shift the balance together. For two years, Aurélie gathered research on the best tactics used by the social entrepreneurs and activists around the world to bring more balance between the genders. This book is a very practical guide, freely available online. It's a toolbox for those who want to become balance-makers, themselves.

Techsauce had the pleasure of interviewing this heroic, interesting and estute lady! Read on for the full interivew.

What inspired you to write the book?

I wanted solutions and wanted something more action-oriented. At the time I was reading a lot about feminism and found that the literature was focusing on the problem and not creating solutions. I wanted to give concrete advice that individuals can use themselves. This book is about giving tools to make a change. This Book helps people who are interested in gender, the awareness of gender inequality, it's basically Feminism for dummies. Its a 'Tool Kit' to classify the solutions into tactics, with a more vocal approach which people can replicate these solutions. 

An example of these solutions is by generating more female speakers at high profile conferences for example which can be done in every country. You can make a business out of feminism, this book can be your guide. 

Why do you think that we still live in an unbalanced society?

'Patriarchy' is still prevalent which we have been fighting for over 100 years, easily. Some men pretend to be feminist but they lie. It's similar, if not worse than the race fight or the rise of Asia versus the west in terms of economic stature. Its all a game of power and people deny the problem. Its a fical fight as women are the only oppressed people who are in an intimate relationship with their oppressor- we essentially are fighting with the people we love. It’s complicated and intricate. Some women are not aware of their power and some women don’t want things to change. The women who do want change can be ridiculed, interrupted, problematic and can be attacked in many different ways. There is still a lot of work to be done! 

What advice do you have for females in Thailand who have a startup and are struggling in a male dominant industry, for example, the tech industry (which is still quite male dominated)

There are different tactics, we don’t need to infiltrate, we can try to play the game following the rules, but we have to create own reality - develop more female investors that are key. 

By creating circles of female investors, who are only interested in helping female orientated startups will see an increase in female-run companies start to dominate their industries. Instead of giving money to charity train and create women to become entrepreneurs. We need to grow solidarity and mentoring. At Tech events, for example, we need to try to have keynote speakers who are females! Encourage women to write blogs in their industries and use their voice to show their level of expertise in their field. 

Do you feel like you may ostracize men? And is there a way that we can all collaborate and help each other?

Its a fight for power, however, we need to value men who mentor women and help nurture and support them. 

We have to be vigilant. A lot of people (including women) think they are feminist but they aren't. Awareness is power.

In which position and what industries do you think women are performing really well in?

We are not in power yet. Who is actually running the show? Most of the doctors and teachers are male and female. however, you will find that the top CEO's and head of the companies are still male.

In HR and advertising, women are becoming more dominant. Things are changing but we need more and more awareness. This is what this book gives you! 

Do you think better pay for women will help the unbalanced situation in the working world?

There are 3 instruments that are key: 

Money

Tech

Media

These things help us change scale along with equal pay which will help 100%. 

The power is not only the pay gap but also investment. Create a female women investors group and own our own media. Tech is viral - it’s what grows and we need women in tech as it is changing the world! 

With regards to Business do you have any female entrepreneurs that you admire and that inspire us?

Inspiring young female entrepreneurs are doing well. For example, I was in Iran at the tech startup roadshow. It was launched by a young woman - she wants to contribute to the world and collect the best startups in Iran together. Technology is liberating and there are amazing stories of the middle east being at the forefront of this transformational shift. 

How did you conduct your research? Was it in a niche market/ industry or conducted over a broad spectrum of countries, industries, and people?

The data is mostly formed from the USA and Europe. The solution is formed all around the world. 

We will replicate the models that work in 100 countries via tech, teach coding to women, develop apps that deal with sexual harassment apps. We need to wake up, I wrote this book to wake up myself up too. The inequality is in everything, it's in health care. Even when we look at Pharmaceutical industries talking about Depression and pills to treat it, publish what they want and in some cases is not true. This form of oppression is deeply rooted.

What would be your ideal situation for the future with regards to female entrepreneurs and society as a whole?

Sheryl Sandberg was quoted saying 'We need a world where half our homes are run by men and half of our institutions are run by women.' 

5% of women are CEO’s in the world. Women are creating small companies. The world economic forum says it will take 100 years to reach equality and apparently it's getting worse. We need to consider sexism as bad as racism. This needs to be taken seriously.

If you want to learn about feminism 2.0 and how to leverage new media to challenge the patriarchal structures and more about this incredible book, head over to http://www.shiftbalance.org/.