I've been intrigued by female colleagues grumbling about International Women's Day. One said she was always taught that if you put your mind to it, you could do anything you wanted to and that having a 'women's day' actually marginalised women. I'm sure that if you are fortunate enough to be in an environment where the hardest part of progress is making your mind up to do something, then yes, it is possible to succeed and make it happen. But if you are oppressed, marginalised, subjected to violence and control - well then the strongest mind is going to have difficulty 'getting on and succeeding'. It is certainly going to be tricky if you are one of the 62 million girls worldwide denied any form of education.
International Women's Day does more than celebrate a gender. Inequality remains rife even if the advantaged fail to recognise its existence. Statistics from the UK's Independent newspaper and elsewhere paint a grim picture that all people (not just men or women) should read, understand and take action to change.
Every job, profession or paid pursuit seems to include an automatic wage gap between men and women - with women always the lower paid. Our own profession of public relations and communication management is no exception. The CIPR is trying to address wage equality although the UK is not alone in this - it is a global problem that must be addressed across the world and across all types of work.
Here, the Executive Director of the UN Women's explains it well:
We still have much to do - gender equality is a required condition for the success of any global agenda but it won't happen without a shift in the power relations between men and women.
So celebrate International Women's Day - shout and make a noise. Don't belittle it - instead, draw attention not just to the inequalities that exist but the solutions that would see such inequalities resolved. When the clock rolls over at day's end, take what we've learnt from others and start making some changes. Then, we might just start to achieve an equal world for all.
Je Suis Charlie - Nous Sommes Charlie
The murders of 12 people at the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France yesterday have left 12 families bereaved and bereft. In Egypt, Al-Jazeera journalists are still held in jail.Worldwide, in 2014, 61 journalists were killed. Everyday, around the world, people are being killed for speaking out, for not agreeing, for holding a different opinion or belief.
The magazine satirises everyone - religions (of all kinds) politicians (of all kinds) and any topic, person or subject deemed worthy of lampooning. Since the murders, debate on the perceived 'rights and wrongs' of Charlie Hebdo content has been heated - here in New Zealand, remarks by a former broadcaster have prompted a storm of social protest.
But the focus should not be on debating the rights and wrongs of content. Instead, words and images that accurately describe the evil men who perpetrated this crime should be chosen with care. They are not fighters for a cause, warriors in a war or any other of the descriptors assigned to them.
They are murderers, pure and simple, who took the lives of 12 people and injured seven others. Their actions contravene civil and religious laws. They will be caught and granted a fair trial.
As for the rest of us, such murders should not constrain our thinking or our speech. The spontaneous vigils held throughout the night of the murders showered sparks of hope on a dark day - would that such vigils continue for the thousands upon thousands around the world currently at the mercy of other ruthless murderers.
I would urge you to use your words to affect change - write on behalf of those, like the Al Jazeera journalists, imprisoned for doing their job. If you don't know where to start, then Amnesty International can guide you. Write to your politicians and media urging them to do what they can to encourage, rather than suppress freedom of speech and the spread of ideas. Speak out when someone is hounded on social media for an opinion or idea that contradicts, satirises or challenges convention.
As Edmund Burke possibly remarked:
Nous Sommes Charlie - nous devons tous parler.