March 8th: International Women’s Day

Today is International Women's Day, and as the name suggests, it is a day in which the whole world should recognise the achievements made by women and on behalf of women, but it should also be the day that everyone focuses on what more they can do to ensure that women are continually given the opportunities to be equally respected, paid and enabled.  We can celebrate the positive steps made socially, economically, culturally, but this is a call for continual positive change that advances women, lobby for accelerated gender parity and fundraise for female-focused charities.

This year’s theme is #EmbraceEquity, the aim is to encourage conversation why equal opportunities are not always enough and why equal is not always fair. Embracing equity in this context means working with each other so that each individual gets get resources and support needed to succeed since in society we do not all start from a level playing field, it is vital that we all get a chance to be successful. 

For instance, there are still many places in the world where the resources spent on boys and girls are different, whereby a girl has no chance of succeeding simply because of her gender. However, if people are brought up in an environment in which equity is embraced, every child, regardless of their gender, will have the same opportunities to make their dreams come true. 

That said, embracing equity is by no means exclusive to ones gender, it also applies to race and culture, we must judge on what a person has and can achieve, rather than who, what, or where they are from. 

So on this day we'd like to celebrate all the inspirational, professional, and hard working women who have worked with us this year including Patricia Routledge, Dame Maureen Lipman, Lesley Garrett, Liza Goddard, Sue Jameson, Christine Croshaw, and Gina Miller, to name just a few. These individuals have for decades gifted our nation with their artforms, their hard work and courage, and it is a pleasure to work with them all.