It’s International Women’s Day on 8^th March and I’ve been looking for what I can say about it. I went through good old Pinterest looking for quotes and there are some good ones like “you can’t spell ‘hero’ without ‘HER’” and the one I’ve used in my cover photo.

Many hundreds of years ago, it was thought that women, the matriarch, was in charge of tribes and villages – and it is still the case in some small areas of the world. These older ladies were seen as wise women and leaders with a lifetime’s worth of knowledge. I imagine they were running the village while the men were off hunting because, let’s face it, men are built stronger to do this type of work. Women, and in particular the older women, were respected and listened to. I’m not sure when it changed. Burning them at the stake for being a witch may have been the turning point in history. And since then, women have had to fight to show that while we may not be strong to hunt down a mammoth, we are very strong in many other ways.

While I’m all for letting my daughter know she can be anything she wishes, she is strong, she is fearless and when she’s refereeing she’s the boss.  I also have a son. I want my husband and I to raise him respecting women and seeing them as an equal whether this is in the classroom, a job and also in the home to share the housework. Raising girls to become these amazing women is a big shout out from me but we also need to raise our boys to shed the outdated views of what a women is, that are still around in society today.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is Equality and I hope I am raising both my children to believe in equality. I want them to “Share the passion and excitement that comes from valuing and supporting difference”*. My son is reading Marcus Rashford’s “You Can Do It”. This is Marcus Rashford’s second book and I greatly respect him for writing both books and showing young people to look at things differently and to become better members of society. He tells his readers “Once you realise that everyone’s the same, you realise everyone is worthy of love and respect” which I think is a great message. Another thing I like is he raises questions why it is called ‘Women’s Football’ and the game men play just called ‘Football’ and that for many years women were not paid to play football as it was thought it would take money away from the men’s game. It’s the same with rugby league. York City Knights announced they were paying their female players and there was uproar. Not because of the injustice that women were not being paid at all, it was (like the football) concern it would take money from the men’s game. The worst thing is, I believe it is York and ONE other rugby league club that pays their ladies to play. That is not equality.

So, as we approach International Women’s Day, let us raise our girls to be strong and our boys also to be strong but to have an understanding that girls are their equal. And let us all remember “everyone is worthy of love and respect”. I don’t think we can go far wrong with that.

*(IWD: International Women's Day 2023 campaign theme: #EmbraceEquity (internationalwomensday.com)