As we celebrate the 107th International Women’s Day, I have been wondering about what equality might look like in the future for women. Women are making huge strides as money-earners, leaders and innovators and yet there are still girls on our planet fighting for the right to not be married or raped at 12, or fighting to be educated. In fact I couldn’t believe my eyes the other day when an Australian publication questioned whether we still need to celebrate IWD…….what the?
This year I want to focus on what it might look like for gender parity. I want to put a vision/thought bubble out into the universe of what our children or children’s children might experience.
Bearing in mind that whilst I’m focussing on women for IWD day, just alongside here in solidarity I think the same thoughts for the LGBTI communities, the mentally ill, and all discriminated humans on our planet.
My top 5 visions for the future:
1. Worldwide Crime – This is a fairly straightforward ideal – Any of the below statistics eradicated:
- If you are born a girl in South Africa, you are more likely to be raped than to learn to read
- A female virgin child is valued at $500 by sex traffickers.
- In Uganda, 8 in every 100 students aged 16-17 had been coerced into sex with their teachers.
- 250 girls experience female genital mutilation every hour. That’s 42 girls every 10 minutes
- In Nepal, 70% of girls are married by age 10 and 40% by age 15.
- In Krygyzstan approximately 40% of women in cities had been victims of ‘bride kidnapping’ one of the most common forms of forced marriage
- Up to 70% of women experience physical or sexual abuse by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.
- 2 million women and children are held in sexual servitude around the world, but 95% of trafficking cases are never reported.
Source: Actionaid.org
2. Women’s Sport – Imagine if our nightly news, featured an equal amount of women’s sports in the highlights of the day, rather than just tacked on to the last sporting story that the Australian Women’s cricket team won the world cup and are the highest ranking women’s cricket team in the world. That all athletes in their area of expertise received the same prize money and sponsorship opportunities.
3. Government Representatives – The head of Un Women recently shared that on average a girl born today would likely to be 50 before she would lead a country. Our of our 150 house or reps positions, imagine if in the future 75 were held by men and 75 were held by women?
3. Business and Entrepreneurs – According to Forbes magazine there are an estimated 1826 billionaires in the world with a whopping 197 of them women. – Wouldn’t it be lovely to see that figure expand to 920 ? And what of women on boards and CEO’s – In the future there would be no discussion of the need or desire to increase the representation of women on boards because it was already so. Equal pay for equal work – of course, it’s a given!
4. Social Differences – Just at random:
• That women would no longer be made out to be at blame or ‘asking’ for it when it came to prosecuting for rape and sex crimes.
• Whilst we have women presenters in the media now into their 40’s and 50’s, in the future we will continue to see them on our screens into their 60’s and 70’s if they so choose. (Brian Henderson was 71 when he retired from news)
• That roles for women of substance and over 40 in theatre and the arts continues to grow.
5. A self-indulgent one: That Women with Altitude in the future has loads of male members, totally comfortable and unthreatened by our moniker, in complete solidarity for their fellow women and full of respect and support for business for all, in the same way that are female members are today.
What’s your vision for gender parity?
Hugs to all this IWD and EVERY day
Andrea xx
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