It’s International Women’s Day (IWD)… and I’m finding it hard to get excited about it. For all the gains that we’ve made, we still have a huge amount of work to do to reach equity. The usual day of cupcakes and presentations ‘celebrating women in our workplace’ feels like a basket of empty plaudits and a lot of noise with no sustainable action. I’ve already received one email celebrating the day by giving away ‘gorgeous hats’. I kid you not.
I could throw all the statistics in here about the lack of progress in pay equity, the level of gender violence, or the lack of women in senior leadership roles. But no doubt those topics will be well covered today by others (check out the absolutely brilliant Australian #MoreThanCupcakes campaign).
Instead, I’m going to share something random with you that is the perfect example of why we still have so much to do. I’m currently reading Niki Bezzant’s book This Changes Everything: The honest guide to menopause and perimenopause.
It turns out female killer whales and human women* are the only mammals that experience menopause. Interesting. But more interesting still – during her research of the book, Niki found that there appeared to be more research on the menopause of whales than the menopause of women.
It’s a significant life stage that half (!) of the population goes through, yet there are still huge gaps in the research on the practicalities of menopause. I can’t even. How are we supposed to support women to thrive, if we don’t invest in understanding how their bodies work and critically what we can do to better support them?
I’d like to recognise the groups of people doing amazing work day-in-day-out, behind the scenes, to try and shift the dial on equity. But to come back to one of our central messages: we all have a responsibility. We all have a responsibility to check our own biases, find ways to be more inclusive and lift others up.
It’s not something that is achieved in one day. It takes real money, time, and effort. But it’s something we have to keep doing to truly unleash potential and performance – for everyone.
Listen to the awesome podcast interview with Niki on menopause and perimenopause and what the workplace can do to be a better supporter.
