This Sunday, almost 50% of the world population will be celebrated on International Women’s Day, a day reserved to celebrate the huge strides that the world has taken for women’s and equal rights will take place on the 8th March. As a predominantly female office, we join so many across the world to take this one day as a platform to support equality in the workplace. Did you know the first International Women’s Day actually took place in 1911, that’s before women gained the right to vote?!
“An equal world is an enabled world.”
#EachForEqual
Last year International Women’s Day promoted their #BalanceforBetter campaign. This year, the campaign’s theme is equality for everyone, by everyone, to gain equal representation and opportunity for women across the world – #EachForEqual.
As a company that works closely with varied technology industries, as well as global brands, we know how important it is, across the board, to enable opportunity for experience and learning to all! We’re also aware that certain industries are still firmly lacking in female representation, such as construction, manufacturing, engineering and technology. The amount of women working in technology has moved only slightly in the past decade and is currently still only 17% for IT professionals in the UK. Improvements can be accomplished through raising awareness of the facts, and providing education around the topic; the more attention created around equality, the more the conversation can open up!
It’s important to remember that the #EachForEqual campaign is not a one-day event, this campaign will continue to run throughout the year and equal rights should be worked towards each day of the year! Although there has been an arguable lack of ‘breakthroughs’ compared to the earlier women’s rights movements, the momentum, support and global spotlight is undeniably more powerful than ever. Unfortunately, the likelihood of anyone already living seeing the day of true gender equality is slim to non-existent; the World Economic Forum claims that it could take up to 202 years for the gender pay gap to close. Now, in 2020, there is still a 31.4% average gender gap globally, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, however, we, in Western Europe, can claim the highest parity percentage for 76.7%.
Politically, economically, in health and education and in terms of pay, there is still so much more room for improvement, so in the workplace and in the world around us, let’s create a ‘healthier, wealthier and more harmonious’ place to live!
