March is CWU Equality Month – and today is International Women’s Day
Union Matters March 8 2021
In Equality Month’s second week – the week which starts with International Women’s Day – we’re publishing a series of articles focussed on the fight for women’s rights.
Our NEC lead for women Jean Sharrocks kicks off this week with her thoughts on International Women’s Day and its message of inspiration…
International Women’s Day is held every year on the 8th of March across the world and this year, the theme is Choose to Challenge.
Women across the UK and in other countries come together united in the aim and vision of a gender-equal world, celebrating women’s achievements and increasing our visibility. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality and we need to celebrate women’s achievements.
The first International Women’s Day took place in 1911 with over a million women and men attending rallies in different countries. In 1975 the United Nations celebrated International Women’s Day for the first time. Following on from this in 1996 the United Nations announced their first annual theme for this day Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future.
To further raise awareness and to energise this important day further, a dedicated website internationalwomensday.com was launched in 2001. This website is still going strong 20 years later and it provides extremely useful guidance and resources for celebrating IWD. It also adopts an annual campaign theme for every year.
Make IWD your day and do what you can to make a positive difference for women.
Individuals are invited to share in their #ChooseToChallenge images on their social media platforms. So, strike the #ChooseToChallenge pose with your hand high to show your commitment to choose to challenge inequality, call out bias, question stereotypes, and help forge an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let’s all choose to challenge
Please view our equality month programme here for more information and registration details on the many events we have scheduled throughout Women’s Week. We’d love for you to get involved.