On March 8, International Women’s Day is celebrated. With the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Global Gender Gap Report informing us that gender parity is over 200 years away – there has never been a more important moment to keep the motivation and #PressforProgress, the theme of the 2018 International Women’s Day campaign. And with global activism for women’s equality driven by movements like #MeToo, #TimesUp, and others – there is a strong global push towards gender parity.
And while we know that gender parity will not happen overnight, the good news is that women around the world are making positive strides day by day. Furthermore, there is indeed a very strong and growing global movement of advocacy, activism, and support.
Therefore, now more than ever, there is a strong call to action to push forward and progress towards gender parity.Report Shows Need for Urgent Action
Gender parity is an important achievement that strongly influences whether economies and societies advance. Successfully leveraging and mobilizing half of the world’s total talent pool has a huge impact on growth, competitiveness, and future readiness of economies and organizations worldwide.
The Global Gender Gap Report benchmarks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity through four main themes: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. There is also data on the dynamics of gender gaps in talent pools and industrial occupations.
Unfortunately, the data shows that the gender gap is widening, so new ways of thinking are desperately needed if the world wants to close the gender gap. Progress is regressing and going backwards. Instead of taking 170 years to close the gap at the current rate of progress, it is estimated that global gender parity will take over two centuries, 217 years to be exact.Women Leaders Hire More Women
Could putting more women in charge be the key to closing the gender gap? While women worldwide are closing the gap in critical areas such as health and education, significant gender inequalities persist in the workforce and politics. The rate of progress for women has been slow over the past decade, with the proportion of women leaders increasing by an average of just over 2% in 12 industries studied by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
WEF data shows that when women are more present and participating in leadership roles, more women are hired at all levels. This detail holds true even when considering disparities in the size of female talent pools across various industrial sectors. If the proportion of women in leadership is not increasing quickly enough, but we know that diversity in leadership positions is a critical factor in closing the economic opportunity gap, then it is clear that women’s participation at the highest levels of leadership and management needs to increase and accelerate rapidly.
The theme of the 2018 International Women’s Day campaign is #PressforProgress and activities worldwide will see groups and organizations launching new gender parity initiatives, celebrating women’s achievements, calling for greater action, and more. Employers around the globe will support the campaign by doing what they can to actively engage and leverage their workforces and communities to forge gender parity.History of the Day
International Women’s Day emerged from the labor movement to become an annual event recognized by the UN.
The seeds were planted in 1908 when 15,000 women marched through New York demanding shorter working hours, better pay, and the right to vote. It was the Socialist Party of America that declared the first National Women’s Day a year later.
The idea of making it international came from a woman named Clara Zetkin. She proposed the idea in 1910 at an International Working Women’s Conference in Copenhagen. There were 100 women from 17 countries, and they unanimously agreed.
It was first celebrated in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. The centenary was celebrated in 2011, so this year we are technically celebrating the 107th International Women’s Day.
Things were formalized in 1975 when the United Nations (UN) began celebrating the day and later defined an annual theme. The first (in 1996) was “Celebrating the past, planning the future.”Source: BBC News and www.internationalwomensday.com