International 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. According to the World Economic Forum, sadly none of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, and nor likely will many of our children. Gender parity will not be attained for almost a century.
At Asphalion, women represent a 68% of the company, and women at the technical team account for an astounding 66,3%. Today, to commemorate #IWD21, we have held a special session about the history of #IWD and women´s rights and watched a 3 minutes video of the UN about global history of women´s rights. Futhermore, we have held a workshop about inclusive language. Also, after a short mindfulness exercise, we have created a words cloud with the words that are key for each member of the Asphalion´s team regarding #IWD. You can see the resulting image and key words accompanying this text.
International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time by the United Nations in 1975. Then in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.
The UN announced their first annual theme “Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future” which was followed in 1997 with “Women at the Peace table”, in 1998 with “Women and Human Rights”, in 1999 with “World Free of Violence Against Women”, and so on each year until this year´s campaign, “Choose to challenge”.
A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions – all day, every day. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let’s all #ChooseToChallenge.
