#BEBOLDFORCHANGE is the latest worldwide campaign for International Women’s Day (IWD).
Urging people to speak out against violence, help forge women’s advancements in society – whilst championing the fight for women’s education… a big task indeed!
Each year, a global collective of charities and organisations band together to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of international women.
This year we’ve seen PM Theresa May take the wheel, Hillary Clinton became the first female candidate for president and Adele stood up for the achievements of Beyonce at the BRIT awards – the achievements of women in 2017 have been hard to ignore.
Those behind the official campaign website believe, ‘visibility and awareness help drive positive change for women.’ Events celebrating international women are taking place all over the world.
Former US president, Barack Obama declared March as ‘Women’s History Month’ back in 2011. Feminists and women’s rights activists have since been curating a series of campaigns to challenge bias and inequality worldwide. Despite the apparent rise in sympathy for the struggles of international women, the aim – to achieve global equality for women, has still not been realised.
The organisers of the Women’s March in January have been busy again. ‘A Day Without Woman’, encourages women to strike from work on the 8th March in protest of economic inequality, the latest in a string of protests supported in major cities like London or New York.
The gender pay gap persists across the globe, with un-equal numbers of men and women rising, with only 50% of working age women represented in the workplace. The World Economic Forum recently predicted the gender gap won’t close until 2186, women are taking this opportunity to bring decades’ worth of campaigning to a close.
International Women’s Day can be traced back to 1908 when 15,000 women marched through New York City, for voting rights, better pay and shorter working hours. The first National Women’s Day was held in the US on 28th February, by the Socialist Party of America. Proposing that every country should celebrate their women, using one day each year to hear the demands of international women worldwide.
In 1910, leader of the ‘woman’s office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, Clara Zetkin, coined the day. Her suggestion was accepted at a conference of over 100 women from 17 different countries and was celebrated for the first time in Austria, Demark, Germany and Switzerland on 19th March 1911. International Women’s Day was then moved to the 8th March in 1913.
Since 1960, women haven't had an excuse to revolt - the times when women burnt their bra's in solidarity are long gone, replaced by a more civilized stand - a day off work.
However, at The Art House in Southampton, there was one woman refusing to take her day off. Dr Diahanne Rhiney, founder of the Strength With In Me Foundation took the day to educate the citizens and students of Southampton by holding a free talk in aid of International Women's Day.
Her job as an domestic violence interventionist and founder of domestic abuse charity @Swim_DV seemed to take precedence. Much to the delight of like-minded women's & children's rights advocates, the red-lit and intimate talk room was majority women - keen to spend their day off educating their minds about the more sensitive issues many women having been facing through-out history.
Bringing facts and figures about the realities hidden within the streets and homes of women world-wide, one fact stood poignant, twenty per cent of violent crimes in Southampton are domestic abuse cases.
"It is time to change, these figures show we need to work together. In today's society secrecy is normal. Kids are putting themselves into dangerous situations living a double life - abuse is no longer out in the open, technology helps, it follows you home. As women our standards of ourselves are slipping.
Self-esteem is knocked by new trends, ruining our self image. It seems women are obsessed with conforming. Young women are falling into situations that put them at risk of sexual exploitation.
We have to analyse why this behaviour is creeping into our homes - from what I've seen it is linked to the behaviour presented by today's role models, women like Kim Kardasian perpetrate this problem."
- Diahanne Rhiney -
These are the figures that go unheard of, this is a figure that fuels the fire behind this movement - that keeps the fight for equality between genders in the centerfold of organisations such as S.W.I.M.
We asked Dr Rhiney which international woman inspires her the most and why. Listen below;