By Jane Cox
International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
It’s also my husband’s birthday, which causes much amusement at home each year as he grumbles about the inequity of having to share his celebrations and my attention with others.
It could be worse I say, you could be sharing your birthday with World Tuna Day, or World Pulse day, hang on did you know there’s even a World Toilet Day!
No, we are not going there! Enough of the toilet humour!
March the 8th is an extremely important day in the annual calendar. It’s also a day that can cope with both raising awareness about all that there is still to do to accelerate gender parity in the world and celebrating. Celebrating the progress we have already made on this agenda, and celebrating the love I have for a man, who in his own way has been a gender parity pioneer. Taking on the role of primary child-carer in our family to raise our sons at a time when people questioned your masculinity for wanting to do so. Thank you P♡ & Happy Birthday xx
Now the global campaign theme for this year’s International women’s day is #EmbraceEquity. And the call to action for us all is to challenge gender stereotypes, call out discrimination, draw attention to bias, and seek out inclusion. As it is collective activism that drives change.
When I hear the phrase #EmbraceEquity, I find it really speaks to me as a coach. As Equity is all about giving people what they need to be successful, taking into account their specific set of circumstances, and lived experiences, rather than treating everyone equally. And that’s exactly what each member of our coach team at Workstories Coaching do, tailoring their approach to create the conditions their clients need to achieve their desired outcomes.
Equity also means taking action to create an inclusive world. And recognising that we can all actively support and embrace equity within our own sphere of influence.
Again, I find this is speaking my language as a coach, as coaching is a conversation with a purpose. It’s about recognising we can all take action to move closer to our desired outcomes – in this case, creating a more inclusive world.
There are many ways working with a coach can help you do this, for example:
By creating a safe space where you can examine your identities, discover your biases and explore your fears, so that you can then work to overcome them.
Or by encouraging reflective practice to celebrate our own unique differences and think about the actions we can take to build inclusivity in our teams
On #IWD23 or infact any day, if you want to create a more inclusive workplace or show up more authentically in your organization, to challenge gender stereotypes, draw attention to bias or call out discrimination, then please click HERE to learn more about how Work Stories Coaching can support you.
Author: Jane Cox
Jane is one our Work Stories founders and resident executive coach. To find out more about Jane client HERE
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