Happy International Women’s Day!

Last Updated on March 8, 2023 by Karl Thompson

Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), which means it’s a good day to reflect on issues of gender equity and possible actions we might take make the world a more equitable place for all genders.

TBH I don’t really see how one can disagree with the goals of IWD which are to realise a world which is free of stereotypes and discrimination, equitable, inclusive and celebrates diversity.

The website above is well worth checking out, there is too much to mention in one post, but there is A LOT of material relevant to A-level sociology.

The main theme of 2023 is embracing equity (#EmbraceEquity)

equality is giving all people the same resources and opportunities

equity is recognising that people have different abilities and giving each person the appropriate resources to achieve the same outcomes.

The difference can be summed up in this handy cartoon:

Hence in the workplace it involves measures like wheelchair access or specialist equipment for those who need it, sufficient so that they can contribute on an equal level.

In terms of gender, I guess equity in the workplace may involve recognising, for example, that pregnant or menopausal women may need occasional additional time off that simply wouldn’t be the case for their male partners.

There are several themes for this year’s IWD, but of particular interest to me (probably reflecting my male bias) is the equity in work theme, and within that (reflecting my age bias) is the issue of the pension pay gap:

There’s also some analysis into why the gap exists, and it includes the usual reasons such as women being more likely to be in part-time work and more likely to take employment breaks for child care.

There are several other themes and I suggest you take the time to explore for yourself, there is a lot of good material!

You can even, if you are that way inclined, take a selfie hugging yourself ’embracing equity’, personally that’s not for me, but by all means go for it and upload it to your preferred centralised social media platform, or if like me you aren’t a limited social media web 3.0 dinosaur, upload it to a DECENTRALISED platform.