2016-03-16
As has been noted, today is International Women's Day, a day that started over a century ago in the US and Europe as a recognition of women's working rights and a demand for women's suffrage. Within a couple of years the first rallies emerged to continue these demands, including access to vocational training and an end to workplace discrimination.
In some countries the whole month of March is designated as Women's History Month. When 50 per cent of the population is only represented in around 0.5 per cent of recorded history, there is a clear need for public focus on this out of dire necessity rather than mere celebration. Commemoration of women's contributions to society are of course an important part of public discourse and an active reminder to take stock of the progress that we have made in relation to gender equality as well as an opportunity to show our gratitude to women everywhere, but these occasions highlight how very far we have to go.
Someone asked me this morning what International Women's Day means to me. There is no doubt that I cherish seeing the great progress of women's empowerment in so many ways, but when female wages are still, 115 years later, only 87 per cent of the average male wage, when one in five employed women with dependent children work without any paid leave entitlements at all — twice the rate of men — and when there are still so few women at CEO or board level and there are such disparate numbers of women in every level of government, I cannot help but note our continuing quest for genuine, sustained economic equality.