Hi...good to see you here! Let's dive in to this super important topic of IWD! :-D
Inte
rnational Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.
Marked annually on March 8th, International Women's Day (IWD) is one of the most important days of the year to:
celebrate women's achievements
raise awareness about women's equality
lobby for accelerated gender parity
fundraise for female-focused charities
This is the official explanation on International Women’s Day and there is also a theme for this year which is ‘Choose to Challenge’: A challenged world is an alert world. And from challenge comes change. So let's all #ChooseToChallenge
Right so we have been celebrating this day for as long as I can remember. We used to receive flowers from our male school mates in primary school and at workplaces from our male colleagues. It was tradition, everybody knew women will get flowers and those men who did not get anything for women, were frowned upon. Yes, it was very cultural and very ingrained in us, but we never really asked any question about it or knew the history behind. I, for one, had no idea why women were ‘celebrated’ on that day and even though we received flowers, nobody explained why, or I was too young to understand but I don’t remember this part for sure. Were the girls / women aware of the centuries of fighting for equal rights and achievements of women? Did the boys know why they have to give flowers to the girls? Did those men at work appreciate all the female colleagues who they gave flowers to? I don’t think I am alone in this, but I did not raise these questions until I matured enough and realised there is just so much more to this day. This day has been celebrated since 1911, the first gathering, unofficially since 1908 when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.
And that was just the beginning….but I feel this day became more like the over commercialised Valentine’s Day where you ‘have to’ buy something to each other as we believed that this is the only way to show our love towards one another! It feels like just another day to say ‘Happy International Women’s Day’ to each other and forget about it the next day.
Yes, we celebrate ourselves and we celebrate our female friends, family members and all the women out there in the world but the questions remain...What can I do? What can you do? How can I show my niece what so many of us have been trying to achieve and what her generations will still have to endure in their lifetime ? There are countless women who have been working very hard to change things for all of us and I appreciate them immensely for that.
While there are certain things we may not be able to influence, female participation in sport is something we are very passionate about and could easily change. We CAN do something about that, we CAN spread the word, we CAN empower each other, and we CAN ‘choose to challenge’.
Did you know that 32% of women (Lockdown Research - Implications for Women's Participation - Women In Sport ) couldn’t prioritise doing exercise during lockdown as they had too much to do for others? We know that many women had to juggle a full-time job, educating children, cooking meals, cleaning, taking out the dog(s), being a good mother, partner, daughter, sister, grandchild and neighbour so is it a huge surprise that women struggled to feel that exercise is a priority? Home working meant increased levels of anxiety and stress for most BUT....(and there is a but in everything) it also meant, they had to go out with the children as they needed the exercise to get rid of all the extra energy they had by being indoors most of the time. That might have been a start of something phenomenal.
Last year's lockdown contributed to a fitness boom and more women participating in sport and activities such as cycling and running. British Cycling has reached its target of getting one million more women on bikes, a cornerstone of the organisation’s ongoing ambition to reduce the historic gender gap within the sport. Strava figures show a massive increase in women’s cycling by all the uploaded rides during 2020! So, while last year was the strangest year in our lifetime (don’t want to jinx it so ‘touch wood’)
and caused havoc in certain parts of our lives, it really empowered more women to start exercising than any other year before. We are finally growing in numbers and this was a great sign for us, that what we are passionate about will be needed. More women want to participate in sport, look & feel good and confident while doing so. Share their stories, their workouts and celebrate each other’s milestones and challenges. This is a brilliant start for women who wants to be more active and wants others to experience how great it is to go for a ride/run/walk/hike/swim/*put your sport here* . Stopping for coffee & cake, chat and laugh and perhaps spend way more time in the cafe than the workout itself (the greatest way to enjoy exercise if you ask us :-D)
This is the time where we can show children that it is never too late to pick up a sport and be amazing at it. Time where we drag them out for a workout and not the other way around, and time where we can finally celebrate women for what they truly are; equal, powerful, empowering, inspiring and beautiful!
Never stop telling your friends about the 5km you did and how great you felt after because you have no idea how much you are inspiring them by doing so. Never not mention the hike you did or the bike ride you went for, even if it was not a century ride in the coldest day (and therefore not as ‘epic’ as some would call it), as you are probably planting the seeds at that moment. Sometimes it takes time for a thought to settle or an idea to form in somebody’s mind that they should do the same to feel as great as you do. I know I kind of inspired or had at least some influence on my mother who started going to the gym in her mid 50s. While she will never go for a run (she hates running), she will continue going to the gym to maintain her fitness. She also found some social circle there which is part of her 3 times a week exercise then chat routine; what’s better than that??
Let’s not just hope but be mindful that these things should be priority when life goes back to the ‘new normal’ and influence those who make decisions on how to work and live our lives. Those endorphins will be the drug we need for our future to be happy & healthy in our bodies for as long as we can.