March 8th is the start of a new campaign year for International Women’s Day. It is a campaign I have backed in previous years and this year will be no different. This year more than ever it seems a campaign is needed. It has been a year that rocked society with the #metoo campaign, ‘times up campaign, and Carrie Gracie resigning from the BBC over the gender pay gap. Women are still subjected to inequality in society and having two girls this concerns me. This inequality is evident in education, sport and financial life for women.
The theme for this year is #PresstoProgress and this is driven by the fact that we still have a very long way to go before we get to parity.
I am proud to be a feminist and I am raising my children to speak up when they see inequality. This year there is a focus on women in sport. This really resonates with me. My own 18-year-old girl has been in an elite sports programme for the past five years. Her first sport is hockey and she has represented school, county, and club for many years. Her weekends are dominated with matches with her currently playing both ladies and mixed hockey. This weekend she could be heading four hours away for a cup game. Hockey is a pretty big deal in our house.
In September Chloe will be heading to University (hopefully Plymouth) and that decision was based largely on Hockey. She wants to play good hockey and Plymouth University offers this. When choosing her university choices I was a firm believer that if she gets the hockey place she wants then the rest will fall into place.
As a sportswoman it is always disappointing that women’s sporting achievements do not receive the same media coverage or financial gain as men. There is a movement this year to press for progress in this area.
What I have recently learnt makes me even more committed to this. Many will know me as a personal finance blogger and there is a strong link between female elite athletes and entrepreneurialism.
The International Women’s Day 2018 #PressforProgress Women’s World Sport Initiative will feature ambassadors and allies who actively promote women’s equality in sport. We’ll be featuring latest news, accomplishments, issues and successes that forge forward women’s equality in sport.
And we’ll also be celebrating those journalists, broadcasters and media outlets that go out of their way to cover and champion women in sport. Thank you!
We’ll also be acknowledging the sponsors around the world who show their commitment to supporting and driving forward women’s sport.
And importantly, we’ll be featuring the amazing and inspiring women athletes and their teams getting behind the #PressforProgress campaign.
The link between business success and sporting achievement has been well documented, you can read more in this article in the Telegraph. I have summarised the key points below:
When EY talked to 22 top female entrepreneurs as part of the survey, they highlighted five qualities in particular that had been learnt on the field and then successfully applied in the boardroom:
- Confidence in one’s own abilities
- Single-mindedness in the pursuit of goals
- Passion to succeed
- Ability to lead a team
- Resilience to learn from mistakes and setbacks
Therefore I am glad that my daughter has hockey. I am glad that she has always been recognised for her sporting ability and I now wish that the link be explored more. Girls that show these aptitudes and talent for sport should be mentored more in school. They should have the opportunity to turn their hand to business. Those skills and positive attitudes need to be encouraged and developed. They are the future and they show they have the mindset.
I welcome the press for progress campaign and I urge those with sporty girls or those who come into contact with sporty girls to support them more. Look beyond sport and let us make them a force to be reckoned with.
What is your pledge for this years IWD campaign? I pledge to continue speaking up.
To read more about IWD from the UK Money Bloggers read these:
- How to Show Your Financial Worth as a SAHM
- MIND THE GENDER PAY GAP? THEN CLOSE IT YOURSELF!
- International Women’s Day – Inspirational Women
- Women and Money- International Women’s Day
- What I would teach my daughter from a Mother raising boys
- Why women need to talk about money
- Money Mantras: What I’ve learnt about money from the women in my life
- An Open Letter To My Daughters For International Women’s Day
- 5 Lame excuses women don’t invest
- Are you ready to invest?
- Women and Finance: Why get a Finance Degree?
- Is MLM empowering or exploiting women?
- 15 tips to help you to ‘have it all’ as a Working Mum
- Great Women Need Great Support
I worked for EY for 10 years and they are honestly the best sponsor for this campaign! Have you read about they actively recruited ex-Olympians – if you haven’t I will send you some info…
Lovely article! And good luck to your daughter for uni…
Sport for girls and women can be so important and such a driving factor towards success not only in sport but in other areas of their lives, giving them the confidence they need to succeed and I agree wholeheartedly that it is so ridiculous that women’s sport is not yet given the recognition it deserves, though I am heartened to see we are getting there. My middle daughter plays football (she is six) and is lucky where she is to have a strong women’s programme and a dad who has coached a female team and fully behind pushing for equality too. Wishing you all the best of luck this year. I would also love it if you would consider linking this post up to my #BestBootForward linky, where we are talking about womanhood this week. I’ll leave the link below.