Virtually all languages have a number of different words that refer to the female of the species.  Many, sadly, are pejorative, crude and downright sexist. To be fair, the language industry is not, in my experience, especially guilty of this, but that’s not to say that it’s blemish free.

According to the Common Sense Advisory, the language industry is mainly made up of women. This is a surprising and most welcome finding. As a woman who has worked in this industry for over 12 years, I spend a lot of time looking to develop existing business and resource new opportunities. There are many ways of doing this, but during my research I discovered a fantastic initiative called ‘Women in Localization’. I was very impressed that there is an organisation dedicated to the women in our industry. As you can imagine I didn’t hesitate in joining such a fantastic group.

Women in Localization (WL) was founded in 2008 by Silvia Avary-Silveira, Eva Klaudinyova and Anna N. Schlegel and has over 5,000 members across the world.

The idea behind WL is to foster a global community for the advancement of women in the industry, providing an open, collaborative forum where women can share expertise and experience and help each other develop their careers.

At the start of this month (July 2020), WL announced the launch of their Global Community, which actually came into being on the 15th of the month and is intended to unite W.L. members together in one (online) place, regardless of where they live in the world or their access to a local chapter. They say the community “will provide virtual events and an online portal for access to exclusive content. Wherever they may live, W.L. members can be part of one extended community for support, networking and career development.”

The idea behind the launch is fantastic but as this one took place at 8pm GMT, I look forward to accessing a meeting taking place at a more appropriate GMT for a woman with two young children. With this in mind, I’d be interested to hear from any other women in the UK who are part of WL to see how we could work together to our mutual interest.

Fiona Woodford, Global Connects