International Women's Day 2020

An annual event to celebrate women around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD), sounds like a new phenomenon. A marketing gimmick even- in some cynical quarters-, or worse, a joke with cries from die hard feminists of ‘what about the other 364 days in the year’! In fact, IWD has been celebrated on March 8 for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911.

Today IWD is intended to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. And, perhaps in more recent times, it serves as a call to action for accelerating gender parity. In keeping with this, the theme for this year’s IWD is gender equality, be that in government, around the boardroom table, on the sports field, in the media or in our workplaces. To play our part in keeping the conversation on these big issues going, we have put together a short video with some insights from many of our leading women (and men!) here at Teamspirit-

As many of my colleagues beautifully articulate in the video, there is a part of me that hopes, one day, we won’t need a day to recognise the achievements of women. But, until we are even close to addressing the gender pay gap, events like this are very much needed. Recent research from Mercer’s new ‘When Women Thrive 2020 Global Report’, shows just 40% of the global workforce is currently female with only 29% of women holding senior positions and reports last week from the TUC showed women have to work for free for two months a year as a result of the gender pay gap. Against this backdrop, it looks like we still have a long way to go and initiatives like IWD will remain fundamental to ensuing others recognise and celebrate the value and power of women.