Numerous PR pitches have landed in the Women’s Agenda inbox this past week. All pitching stories about women with variations of the line, “As we approach International Women’s Day.”
It’s as if such stories are only worthy due to a calendar date.
And it’s as if IWD is only about celebrating the inspiring careers of individual women.
On Women’s Agenda, we don’t do anything particularly special for IWD.
Our mission is to examine key news events with a gender lens. Not for one day, but every day.
And we know that almost every story is a women’s story.
That includes examining the gendered impacts of catastrophic weather events, such as with Cyclone Alfred.
It means exploring how policy announcements impact women’s economic participation, like the Coalition’s promise this week to push public sector workers to return to the office five days a week.
It means exploring necessary legal reforms to support women’s safety and access to justice, such as recommendations outlined by the Australian Law Reform Commission to enable better access to justice for survivor victims of sexual violence (check out our podcast on the issue here).
It means constantly considering the broader implications of gender and leadership gaps, including by industry, such as by scrutinising data released by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency this week. (Check out our conversation with WGEA CEO Mary Woldridge here.)
It means keeping up with the massive gaps in private capital going to female entrepreneurs, women’s representation on boards and in business and community leadership and so much more.
And it means celebrating the wins!
IWD’s historical roots are in action. We need to be working together on shared goals rather than celebrating the achievements of individual women or merely the gains made for women.
We must also examine the added impacts on women and girls of conflict, climate change, pandemics and disintegrating world security. Sadly, as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday, we must examine the impacts of the “mainstreaming of misogyny”. We must consider the precarious nature of what’s already been gained.
We must scrutinise the lack of women in key negotiating positions in business, politics and on the world stage and demand better. Every day. Not because women leaders are ‘inspiring’ but because representation is necessary.
These conversations are more than any one day. They are required every day.