March 8th is International Women’s Day

Every year on March 8^th, people all over the world celebrate the achievements of women, both today and from history, and keep raising awareness of gender inequality issues, pushing for change.

International Women’s Day has been going for so long, no one really knows when it began, but it was definitely around in the early 1900s when 15000 women marched in New York City for the right to vote and better rates of pay.

While women’s rights have improved a lot since 1900 there is still plenty of evidence to show that there is still a long way go before we achieve true equality for all, and so International Women’s Day remains relevant to this day. You may have seen many people wearing black at the BAFTAs this year, in support of the #MeToo campaign to eradicated sexual harassment and bulling of women. So you see, this is very much a current issue.

The gender pay gap

There is a still huge gaps in rates of pay between males and females. In 2017, research showed that women had to work 51 more days than men to achieve the same rate of pay. Some large businesses were also found to be paying their female employees less than half the sum they were paying their male employees. This is seems crazy in this day and age, but it is going on, and so International Women’s Day is very important for anyone who cares about equal rights.

A big anniversary for women’s rights

This year is also a major anniversary for the women’s rights movement as it is 100 years since the first law was passed that enabled some women to vote. While women could only vote if they were over 30 years of age and owned a house, it was still a huge step forward and paved the way for further laws to enable more women to vote.

We offer our support

Here at Speedy Reg we believe equality to be incredibly important. Fair pay and good treatment is vital. Your gender, skin colour, sexuality or anything else should all be entirely irrelevant when it comes to how much you get paid for doing your job, and certainly no one should be subjected to sexual harassment or bullying in the workplace. We know that there’s a long way to go with these issues. Healthcare and education for women are still lacking way behind those offered to men in many countries, but hopefully things will improve and getting involved with International Women’s Day is a great way to help push this forward and bring about some positive changes in the world.