Essay by Rosemary Amato, AWA Malta and AWC Amsterdam
Interview by Mary Adams, AWC The Hague
Since its founding, the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG) has championed the power of women’s voices, ensuring they are heard, celebrated and shared. In 2025, its anthology efforts align with the 69th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. This event is a call to action, reminding us of the power of storytelling to illuminate the 12 critical areas of concern outlined in the Beijing Platform for Action – from education and health to climate justice and human rights. The 2025 IWWG Anthology, supported by The de Groot Foundation, brings together voices from around the world to reflect on these themes.
Women from FAWCO took the opportunity to share stories with IWWG that touched on 11 of the critical concerns: Human Rights, Education and Training, Poverty, Economy, Health, Power and Decision-Making, Institutional Mechanisms, Environment, Violence Against Women, Media and the Girl Child. The Human Rights Team is proud to publish these works and interviews with the six authors in the coming months.
The fifth instalment, “Just Facts,” contemplates the difference between facts and data intelligence in decision-making. Rosemary reflects on her career and personal life, realising that simply gathering “facts” is insufficient for making informed decisions. True “data intelligence” involves understanding the “WHY” behind the data, its context and its potential implications.
Essay
Facts – Memories – Plans – Just Data!
I remember the first time a boss said to me “Rosemary, you have to broaden your gray area. Everything is not black or white. The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you will be a success.” Broaden my gray area? What did he mean? I’ll come back to that shortly, as that sentence really summarizes the need for every individual to be data intelligent, and I want to share with you how I discovered data intelligence.
Ever since I was a child, I focused on getting the facts. I learned that when you present the facts, people will listen to you. I have always been an avid reader, starting with the summer reading program at Harvey Rice School in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. I also learned that facts make you start thinking that everything is black and white, wrong or right, left or right, and so forth. And that attitude stayed with me while I was growing up in my blue-collar family.
My parents were second generation immigrants; Dad’s parents came from Sicily and Mother’s parents came from Hungary. They were focused on having their three daughters go to college. The facts presented to my sisters and me were that we would go to a college prep high school and there would be no discussion over this fact. The school they chose for us, after researching a lot of data, was a school that prided itself on making students ready for college. And yes, all three of us were accepted at the same high school and then we were accepted into the colleges WE individually chose. I became an accountant and my sisters became medical doctors.
I look back at my memories from my early career days and I wonder why I made the choices I did. I realize now that I often did not have enough data when I decided to move from employer to employer, from city to city, from country to country. From the ages of 21 to 47, I had seven employers and 10 different roles, and moved between states seven times. My motivation for taking on a new role or moving to a new company was purely money. I was not gathering all the data I needed for a decision, but I was just gathering facts, and only one of those facts was a real data field – how much money would the new role/position pay! I have realized now that I made some good decisions with the moves, but I also made some bad decisions.
I learned that most people – including myself at that time in my life – don’t think about gathering data in order to make a good decision. They just want to decide. I know I gathered a variety of facts. I created action plans from those facts, but was it really data? And was it the data I needed to make an informed decision? And most importantly, was it good data? We know the world is rapidly changing and evolving into a world where fake news appears regularly. How do you know if your data is good? How do you recognize what data you need? How do you plan for your future with data? I’m still struggling with data, and there is no simple answer.
During my career after the age of 47 until I was forced to retire at the age of 66 (and that is another story!) I worked for one company in one location and served clients working on various projects in cities throughout the world. Data was always the focus for these projects. Auditing data, data in e-business, risks of using data, Big Data, data to validate computer systems, data visualizations – almost every project was focused on data and how it was created, retained, changed or used. But one thing that was often missing from the project was the answer to the question WHY. Why were those clients concerned about data? What questions were they trying to answer? Why was the data needed? Would they change something? Would something improve? The WHY is the most important aspect of understanding data, but everyone forgets to ask that question.
I remember a seminar I attended in London when Big Data was the new buzzword. One of the speakers was an ex-employee from Barclays Bank. That is where I learned about the importance of WHY. He showed example after example of initiatives that failed and initiatives that succeeded. The key to a successful initiative was that someone asked the question WHY and had hypotheses prepared to answer that question. WHY do we need to collect this data? WHY is this data important to us? And then what are we going to do after we analyze the data?
Today we are still being bombarded with data. How many surveys do you receive a week? Survey after survey – someone is collecting data for some reason. Newspapers, whether online or those still in print, have sections with charts, even on non-financial topics, where they are trying to use data to prove a point they want to make. I have learned that you can prove anything by preparing a good data visualization – but does it always tell the truth? Only you can judge that by learning to understand how to read a visualization. WHY is the visualization being presented to you? Do they want you to vote for someone? Do they want you to buy a product? Do they want you to invest in some money offering or stock? You must become data intelligent and understand how data is being collected and why it is being channelled to the audience it is focused on. Nothing may be further from the truth than a visualization that appears to use the facts if you don’t know how to interpret it and you don’t have an understanding of what data they used to prepare it.
This is the challenge we all have now. Remember what my boss said to me – broadening my gray area? I learned that all decisions I made and will still have to make are not black and white. There are very few things that fall into a black or white category. Broadening my gray area has allowed me to look at facts, compare data and realize that most situations fall into the gray area. Those things that are not life or death. Those things that I can accept a compromise for. The author of The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown, said: “I love the grey area between right and wrong. It is here where the actions of conflict or cooperation take place. It is here that our world of emotion can be uncovered. The grey areas of life allow us to choose sides and form our alliances. It is here where we can become enemies of our opposers. So much of human interaction is lived in the grey areas.”
And living in the gray areas means you have to ask the question WHY.
That is the message I have for you today. Become data intelligent by understanding your need for data in your life – and not just in your business life. Get the facts, do the research, and broaden your gray area. And while broadening your gray area, always ask the question WHY. Why am I concerned about this? Why should I dig deeper into the data? As I started to recognize that very few things are black and white and I learned to broaden my gray area, I saw that more opportunities opened up for me, especially when I asked the question WHY. I also used data to close doors when necessary, and I did stick to the black or white when I absolutely felt there was no gray area. I’m sure you too will recognize the importance of being data intelligent and learn how to broaden your gray area by focusing on the facts, doing the research, getting good data and then creating your plans and making decisions as a data-intelligent individual. Incorporate data into your life! And remember, always ask Why!
Interview with the Author
Why did you choose to participate in the IWWG anthology reflecting on Beijing Platform for Action progress?
I was asked to participate and after reviewing the information I received, I thought it was appropriate to share my writing.
How do your personal experiences influence the way you approach human rights topics in your writing?
Everything goes back to personal experiences. As a woman coming of age in the 1970s, I was often the first one in many different activities. These experiences stay with you your entire life.
Can you describe how your background – whether cultural, academic, or professional – shapes your views on human rights for women?
As the first in my family to go to college, I had many firsts. I just assumed women were equal to men. But throughout my 50 years in the workforce, I discovered that we weren’t and we still aren’t. So we have to make sure everyone keeps focusing on our equality.
What role do you think storytelling plays in human rights advocacy and creating social change?
Learning about other people’s experiences is a way for future generations to understand how we got to where we are today. We need to tell the stories and continue to share our experiences. If you forget, nothing changes, and it often recedes.
How do you see the role of authors evolving in the human rights movement, especially with the rise of digital media and social platforms?
All communication, no matter the platform, is good as long as it is reliable.
What impact do you hope your work will have on public awareness or attitudes toward human rights for women?
Continuous improvement.
Looking ahead, what are some human rights issues or themes you would like to explore more in your future works?
Not sure yet. I’m retired, and I am seeing that a lot of people, especially women, are not prepared for retirement. That may be the topic I want to focus on.
