International Women’s Day is coming in hot, the time when we take time to celebrate and champion the women in our lives.
This year’s theme is Break The Bias, encouraging all of us to spend time having conversations and taking action to challenge and stop gender stereotypes, discrimination and bias.
Though the ongoing pandemic might get in the way of hitting up in-person events if you’re not ready to be around crowds just yet, there are plenty of other ways you can support women and celebrate International Women’s Day this year.
#BreakTheBias And Show Your Support On Social Media
An absolute starting point is showing support and raising awareness on social media. It feels like everyone loves to dabble in a bit of online activism on important dates, which is great but should also be a kicking off point. It’s just as important to have conversations and actively work to break down the bias as it is to post a nice infographic on Instagram.
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Involve Men & People Who Identify Beyond The Gender Binary In The Conversation And Celebration
Though it might be called International Women’s Day, that doesn’t mean that everyone on the gender spectrum is left out of the conversation. Transgender, genderqueer, non-binary people and (importantly) men are just as crucial in the journey to breaking down stereotypes, discrimination and bias as women.
Opening up the conversation to everyone encourages people from all communities to think critically about how they support and champion the women and people who identify beyond the gender binary in their own lives.
Maybe it’s a coffee catch up with a few friends to chat about how you can be better allies, or wrangling the group chat to get along to a local International Women’s Day event. Whatever conversations you have about IWD 2022, make sure they intersect as many of the communities in your life as possible — if you can’t do anything else, at least have one (1) conversation about women.
Advocate For Gender Equality In Your Workplace
If you’re keen to do some work in your day to day life, the workplace is a great place to start to make real change. That might be something as small as having a chat over lunch with workmates about how you can support and champion women you work with.
Maybe it’s giving workmates a shout out in your monthly meeting. Maybe it’s getting people to wear purple on International Women’s Day on March 8th. Or maybe it’s talking to your boss about organising lunchtime speed mentoring sesh, where women from different parts of the company spend time learning about each other’s work.
Or just fuck it up and stage an agreed early walk-out to protest against the gendered pay gap, like a bunch of Sydney women did in 2018 when they realised they were technically only being paid until 3:50pm.
Host Or Attend An Online Panel
Easily the best thing to come out of the pandemic years is the big boost in event accessibility because everyone was forced to hold just about everything online. So if you’re not able to physically get to a speech, panel or event for International Women’s Day you can always try and find something on the internet to tune into.
It also means you can be a part of international events that you normally wouldn’t have been able to physically get to. How good.
Read About Women’s Empowerment
Doing a reading challenge this year or just trying to chew through more books than you normally would? Consider grabbing a new book written by a woman to tuck into on International Women’s Day this year. Hell, take yourself to the park and have a read in the shade if it’s a particularly nice day.
Bonus points if it’s some feminist literature like Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit or Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay.
Support Women-Owned Businesses
A great challenge for yourself on International Women’s Day is putting your money where your mouth is. Try to buy exclusively from women-run businesses to help financially support and promote them this year.
Go the whole day being mindful about where you spend your cash — from your morning coffee to picking up a sweet treat for after dinner and everything in between.
Maybe you could book in that tattoo you’ve been thinking about for months, or buy yourself a little present from a local creator. Grab a loaf of bread from the baker down the street, get a new wardrobe staple from that shop you walk past all the time. And if you can, don’t forget to leave a tip.
Acknowledge The Awesome Women In Your Life
If you can’t do anything else, at least get behind the incredible women and non-male folks in your life. Whether it’s as simple as a text to remind them how much you love them, posting up your favourite photos of them, or promoting their work on social media — there are heaps you can do to acknowledge the women you love the most on International Women’s Day.
Buy us presents, shout us dinner, send us treats. You can do literally anything to show your appreciation of the women in your life, whether it’s workmates, friends, family or the ones who raised you.
