The Breaker’s Ruth Sax looks at how International Women’s Day is being celebrated in Dorset this year.
Women’s Action Network Dorset (WAND) are celebrating International women’s week with a host of activities, culminating with their 11th Dorset Women’s Day event, being held on Saturday 12th March. Author and broadcaster Kate Adie will be giving a talk at the event, titled, “A correspondent’s life”.
Emma Scott, Community Development Officer at West Dorset District Council, explained WAND was set up in response to the need for a network, campaigning and a social group for women in Dorset. The group is working to reduce social isolation, support women health and emotional well being and women development. She said:
“There is still a lot of gender inequality to address, we still face extra hurdles as women. This is a fantastic opportunity for women to come together.”
International Women’s Day has been celebrated for more than a century. It was first set up in Germany, by socialist and theorist Clara Zetkin along with a hundred other delegates from 17 countries in 1911.
Its aim is to celebrate women’s successes and achievements as well as highlighting their plights and issues.
In some countries International Women’s Day is a national holiday.
Women in Britain campaigned for and won the right to vote in 1918, however, some have had to wait much longer. Women in Saudi Arabia were only given the right to vote last year, showing that in some regions there is still a way to go.
Men still earn more than women, according to a survey carried out in November 2015 by Equal Pay Portal. It is expected that it will take around 118 years for the gender pay gap to close.
This year’s International Women’s Day focuses on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development where one of the goals is to empower women and girls as a means of tackling economic underperformance, global overpopulation and poverty worldwide.
Photographer Meredith Hutchison has photographed girls as what they would like to be when they grow up, their dreams and aspirations as part of her ‘Vision not Victim’ creative initiative.
