We’ve got more questions than answers about what and who is behind International Women’s Day, celebrated on March 8. The MVH detectives do some digging into this and previous years’ IWD themes and discuss their annoyance and frustration about the lack of actionable purpose behind this and other DEI issues.
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International Women’s Day is March 8th 2023 and on the website that was created in 2001 to act as a hub for resources, event sharing, content around IWD this is what it says about the 2023 theme.
The aim of the IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme is to get the world talking about Why equal opportunities aren't enough. People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action. The call to action to create viral or sharable moments is that you share a picture of you hugging yourself to show that you embrace equity.
In contract, the U.N.'s theme this year is:
"DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality." The topic highlights how technology is crucial to advancing rights but a growing digital gender gap is impacting everything from women's job opportunities to safety online. According to the U.N., 259 million fewer women have access to the internet than men, and women are largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers.
Do we think America is trying to “corporatize” this issue? Make it more marketable, digestible, “sharable”? Or is this a spin because of just how far behind America is in this conversation?
Why are we dumbing down themes and conversations around this topic?
What should we be doing instead?
Links and resources we reference in this episode:
Aubrey Blanche, the Global Head of Diversity & Belonging at Atlassian says, Representation without distribution does not count. “Corporate level aggregate reports don’t actually measure diversity — they measure representation. It doesn’t matter if 30% of your company is made up of women if they’re all in marketing or HR and the men are in engineering,” says Blanche.
https://internationalmensday.com/We also encourage people to post info about the day on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram using hashtags like #internationalmensday #celebratemen #menshealth #stopmalesuicide #thankamantoday.
https://www.un.org/en/observances/womens-day/background
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/
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