I celebrated International Women’s Day 2021 by attending and speaking at have several fabulous events celebrating women’s innovations, leadership and resiliency. I love these events and am always honoured to speak alongside the many bright women who care about supporting other women to rise.
One day a year is excellent for celebration and recognition. But to accelerate change for good, we will need to adopt this year’s IWD theme, Choose To Challenge, every day for at least the next decade. We need consistent and bold action to accelerate gender parity across all sectors of our economy, community and social structures.
According to the Global Gender Gap Report, while we’ve made significant progress in some key domains, we’ve slipped in others. One of the measures assessed in the report is economic participation and opportunity. Our progress has regressed since the start of the pandemic, putting gender equity at risk globally. Recent research shows women have lost a decade of progress in advancing into leadership roles and disproportionately experienced employment loss; between February to April 2020, a whopping 12.1 million left the workforce. Just over half had returned by September. For mothers, Women of Colour and Indigenous populations, the impact is disproportionately more significant.
Since I am feeling impatient, as I imagine you may be too, I’d like to offer a few insights into what we can do today and every day to accelerate creating a world where every woman can thrive.
Here are three things we can do every day:
Begin.
There’s no time like today to launch your idea for good. Whether it’s your business idea, podcast, foundation or reimagining your career so you can have more influence and fully leverage your skills, now is the time. Go. Launch. Release. Speak. Ask for the help you need to get started and keep going.
If someone opens a door, GO. Check it out. See what’s there.
Take a chance and bet on yourself and your ideas. Lead a new project, put your hand up to try a new initiative, start a new revenue stream or redesign your career.
When a woman begins to collide her ideas with the world, take action on her plan, her energy and vitality expand. This alone creates a shift into the world.
Don’t believe me? Try it. When we do the thing we have resisted doing or dismissed as not important enough to give our time to, we change the course of our future. Think about it. As you take the idea you have, what you have created from the ether and transform it into something tangible, you change, you become someone who puts opportunity into motion. You will be amazed at the shift in your confidence and ambition when you give yourself permission to begin. You are now responsible for your idea, and your action naturally influences the people and possibilities in your circle and beyond.
Be Visible
Visibility is critical for leading change. People need to know who you are and what you stand for. And for many of us, myself included, visibility comes with the baggage. I’ve been coaching brilliant, creative and generous women for the last decade and the struggle to be consistently visible is real. Whether they are talented professionals, leading their own business or in the C-suite, being vocal and visible can be an edge. Claiming and sharing your expertise and ideas can create internal friction, brushing up against deep, internal beliefs that it’s bragging or you’re taking up too much space. Take stock in where you’ve been to be the woman you are today, your strengths and the pitfalls you’ve navigated. Trust yourself and that you will manage whatever reactions your visibility provokes. Take up space and let your ideas and what you stand for be known.
Be the Woman Another Woman Can Count On
I believe we will accelerate closing the gap by standing for one another’s success. This means when a woman is down in the mud, you’re there with a hand for her to grab. You are invested, and remind her she’s got this, and you’ll be right there to hose her off. It’s easy to be there and celebrate the wins. Be there for the mess too. This is how we will rise together.
And one more critical idea about supporting each other: Scarcity is a lie to keep playing an old game where one person’s success is another person’s loss. Don’t buy into it and tear another woman down who is making her mark. Cheer her on publicly, loudly.
Finally, look for ways to catapult another woman forward. Open the door to a new opportunity, make a referral or a connection. When we clear the way for another woman, we are laying down the path for many more to follow. We create momentum, shift the energy and accelerate the rate of change for good.
Let’s make this how we roll; taking bold action to launch our ideas, braving visibility and being the woman another woman can count on. 257 years is too long to wait.
