International Women's Day: As world faces another century of gender inequality, we must do better – Scotsman comment

The day marks a celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and is also a call to action to accelerate the drive towards gender parity.

We should remember that this is not just a day where we fly a flag for women, then dump it in our attics to gather dust. We must continue to highlight issues affecting women and girls in our modern world every single day.

The theme for IWD this year is Break The Bias, looking at how enforced perceptions of women hold them back.

To address this, we need to back campaigns standing up for women in our communities and grassroot movements that speak up for the rights of young women and girls whose voices have been silenced. We need to stand up against sexist comments and everyday misogyny that we have let dominate our society and our industries.

According to the World Economic Forum, none of us will see gender parity in our lifetimes, nor likely will many of our children. Gender parity will not be attained for almost a century.

But that does not mean our fight should be any less stronger. In fact, this should inspire us to strive to achieve better.

International Women's Day was founded in 1911 but there is still much to be done to end gender inequality (Picture: Ian West/PA)

As Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie put it: “My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better. All of us, women and men, must do better.”

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