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I am fortunate that I have a platform to discuss topical issues and for several years have supported the International Women’ s Day campaign which takes place in March each year. My reason for supporting this campaign is to help raise awareness of the challenges women still face throughout the world. We have come a long way, especially in this country, but newborn girls are still set to face more obstacles in their lives than their male counterparts.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the gender pay gap for all employees was 15.5 per cent at April 2020, which means that on average women were paid approximately
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84p for every £ 1 men were paid. A wise woman I know framed this in a different way. The sex pay gap should be reported as a percentage of the women’ s pay, not a percentage of men’ s pay, as the current reporting minimises the gap and makes it seem like a female problem. So, working with the 2020 figures, if you expressed the men’ s pay as a percentage of the women’ s, it demonstrates that men earnt 18.3 per cent more than us. Is that fair? Do men work 18.3 per cent harder? Research already being carried out into the pandemic suggests that women have been more negatively affected in terms of stress both at home and at work, in terms of job |
losses and also in terms of being able to look for a new job.
We ran a similar feature on this subject in our February / March magazine for Swindon & Wiltshire and I received an email from a reader asking,“ what about International Men’ s Day?”. The truth is International Women’ s Day exists because there is a gender imbalance in society, when women are equal in business there will be no need for such a day. There is actually an International Men’ s Day in November each year but very few men get behind it for it to be well-known.
At The Business Exchange we’ re all about encouraging equality. It’ s not about
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‘ girl power’ it’ s about parity and until we achieve it, this subject will always be close to my heart … even if it does make my dad roll his eyes …
To celebrate International Women’ s Day this year we’ re running a campaign online for one week, on the run up to the day, Monday 8th March until Friday 12th March. Visit The Business Exchange websites every day to hear from local women in our community and what they # ChooseToChallenge- the theme of this year’ s worldwide campaign.
In this edition we decided to dedicate some space to put the spotlight on some local women and their exciting businesses.
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