International Women’s Day 2021
8th March, 2021 - Posted by Gavin - Comments Off on International Women’s Day 2021
Gender discrimination and injustice is a theme that is frequently raised in our work. Company member Liz Strange discusses what International Women’s Day means for her this year:
International Women’s Day for me has always been a day to both celebrate women’s achievements and highlight the injustice that still exists. Some years I feel mostly excited and inspired by the energy of women moving forward the cause of equality, and other years I feel depressed by the lack of progress and overwhelmed by how far we still have to go. To be honest this year feels pretty bleak.
In the last few days our female First Minister was grilled on why she didn’t didn’t handle the inappropriate behaviour of her male predecessor better. At the same time a female member of the royal family is getting all the sexist tropes thrown at her for supposedly being manipulative and having her husband “under the thumb”, meanwhile allegations of rape by a male senior royal have been swept under the carpet. Even power, money and privilege do not protect women from overt sexism in our political and legal systems or media.
Meanwhile I’m quietly getting on with the drudgery of providing years of unpaid domestic labour, raising children alone and carrying all the mental and emotional load that that entails while trying to keep up in a career race where I steadily get further and further behind. Equality of the sexes feels a long way off for me. I’m not alone. The figures for how household labour is still unequally divided between the sexes is still shockingly undeniable. As are the figures on earnings, positions of power, promotions, access to justice, pension inequality, health inequality, the list goes on.
In previous years I’ve felt passionate and energised to fight for gender equality. This year I mostly feel frazzled. Sometimes it feels like you’re fighting an invisible monster. I heard Annabelle Williams being interviewed on the radio yesterday about her book “Why Women Are Poorer Than Men And What We can Do About It.” I’m looking forward to reading the book…once I can get a few minutes to myself.
Posted on: March 8, 2021
Filed under: News
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