The internet always goes wild for International Women’s Day. If we thought more of improving women’s lives for the rest of the year, the world would be a much better place for half its citizens. For example, how can you have decent economic growth if women are being forced out of work because of the cost of childcare.

From the Guardian:

Data for 2021 showed the gender pay gap widening four times faster in the UK than the average for the OECD, primarily due to the financial penalty from motherhood.

Larice Stielow, a senior economist at PwC, said: “An 18-year-old woman entering the workforce today will not see pay equality in her working lifetime. At the rate the gender pay gap is closing, it will take more than 50 years to reach gender pay parity.

“The motherhood penalty is now the most significant driver of the gender pay gap and, in the UK, women are being hit even harder by the rising cost of living and increasing cost of childcare.

“With this and the gap in free childcare provision between ages one and three, more women are being priced out of work. For many it is more affordable to leave work than remain in employment and pay for childcare, especially for families at lower income levels.”

That said, here are some of my highlights of yesterday:

Wera calls for misogyny to be made a hate crime.

Victims of Wayne Couzens have argued if reports against his indecent exposure were taken seriously, Sarah Everard might still be alive today.

Women deserve to feel safe. This is why I am calling for misogyny to become a hate crime on #InternationalWomensDay👇 pic.twitter.com/3s7X30V2m9

— Wera Hobhouse MP 🔶 🇺🇦 (@Wera_Hobhouse) March 8, 2023

Predictably the replies are an absolute bin fire.

Later she talked about the importance of understanding the impact of sexual assault on victims:

Most don't realize the true weight of assault on a woman until it happens to someone close to them.

We must listen to victims and recognise the trauma it inflicts. This isn't up for debate. We need action, accountability, and support.

I'm tired of Conservative excuses. pic.twitter.com/RLjPGP00Jw

— Wera Hobhouse MP 🔶 🇺🇦 (@Wera_Hobhouse) March 9, 2023

Gender pay bot

Social media is awash with platitudes from every organisation in the country, trying to show that they are there with the women.  Gender Pay Bot’s Twitter account calls them to account by highlighting their gender pay gap.

Of course all of this is possible because Jo Swinson introduced the legislation requiring companies with more than 250 employees to report on their gender pay gap.

It’s worrying that so many of them are NHS related;

In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 11.9% lower than men's. The pay gap is 8.5 percentage points wider than the previous year. https://t.co/Sy8fp3M2ik

— Gender Pay Gap Bot (@PayGapApp) March 9, 2023

The Daily Express had a gap of 15.7%, although this is down 6.8% in the last year.

Sotheby’s is doing terribly.

In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 30.7% lower than men's. The pay gap is 5.8 percentage points wider than the previous year. https://t.co/VJQitKF90K

— Gender Pay Gap Bot (@PayGapApp) March 9, 2023

Emma Ritch Law Clinic

Some of you may remember Emma Ritch, (pictured here back right) who spoke at our 2018 fringe meeting at Brighton Conference on how Scotland’s feminist and LGBT organisations worked together to help achieve better rights and status for all. She talked about the concept of “radical kindness” which underpinned relations between these organisations – something that we could do with in these awful times.

Sadly, Emma died suddenly in July 2021. She was an outstanding feminist, with the sharpest and wisest of minds, the best sense of humour and a flair for snazzy pencil cases. Scotland misses her a lot. Yesterday, Glasgow University announced that a law clinic, specialising in rape and sexual violence, opening this September would be named for her.

From Glasgow University’s announcement:

As well as offering legal advice, through a specially constituted legal practice unit, the Emma Ritch Law Clinic will offer innovative teaching to students, enabling the next generation of Scottish lawyers to gain critical legal and ethical skills. It will also produce valuable research, providing an insight into the difference that specialist legal advice and representation can make to complainers’ experiences of prosecution, and gather data to better understand why cases might fail to reach, or progress, through the criminal justice system.

The Clinic will also instil awareness of trauma-informed lawyering, and the practice of criminal law, an area with longstanding issues in terms of recruitment and retention.

Engender’s Making work visible

Our society would pretty much fall apart without unpaid and unrecognised work of women. Despite us being almost a quarter of the way through the 21st century, still women do the lion’s share of life admin, caring, houseowork, childcare and general emotional labour.

Engender’s annual #makignworkvisible event highlights that invisible work as women tweet their day and the unpaid work that they do.

I broke the rules slightly with my contribution. My ongoing and painfully slow recovery from Long Covid has reinforced for me how the unpaid work of women goes on no matter how sick you are, it just has to be managed differently.

Hardest part of the day is bedtime, but 2 girls bathed, teeth brushed, story read & now I’m sitting on an old crib mattress waiting for the youngest to go to sleep while I sing about 5 songs.

Unfortunately for me only Mama will do in the evenings & overnight. #MakingWorkVisible pic.twitter.com/lIReTzrvJZ

— Sarah R G (@SarahRGal) March 8, 2023

Pink News “powerful and fearless queer women making the world a better place”

An inspirational list of of 17 LGBT women, from Rebel Wilson, to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to UN Women advocate and trans rights campaigner Munroe Bergdorf.

Finally, there’s always some time to think about the women of Doctor Who.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social