International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021 is next Monday (March 8th), and even though many people are still in various states of lockdown, there’s plenty of great ways to celebrate & raise awareness. If you haven’t already organized something for your team, here’s a few simple ways to participate this year.
Talk about your favorite female run local business
There’s never a bad time to support local businesses. Just talking businesses that are female owned (or run) in a positive light helps to cast off old stereotypes. So get your team to talk about somewhere local that they enjoy. What’s good about it? What do they enjoy? How did they meet the owner? Award extra brownie points if they’ve actually met, know or support the owner in some way.
Trivia time! Guess the movie and actress
Movies, adverts and TV has an incredible impact on what we learn about social norms. Including gender roles and stereotypes. That’s especially true for our children.
Cinema has changed considerably over the years, and there’s lots more female representation in film. Behind the scenes, there’s plenty of work left to do. Did you know that between 1990 and 2020, only 6 women were nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards? That’s 6 out of a 150 nominees (4%).
You can make this bit of education fun for your team. Whilst they try to guess the movie name & lead actress, read out the year of release, and description of a movie. Rotten Tomatoes has a great list of movies with fearless heroines that you can use as inspiration for your quiz.
Teach men how to be allies for inclusion
The numbers speak for themselves, 96% of organizations that have men deliberately engaged in inclusion programs see progress. Which is three times more than organizations where men are not involved.
There’s plenty of things men can to be better allies. Take time to teach them some of the best practices, there’s a few good ones in this HBR article, share some resources for them to read. Perhaps ask the men on your team to cascade the message, educate someone else on the best practices. Teaching is a great way to learn.
Say something nice.
There’s no cost to being nice. Send an email to a female colleague that you respect, or have been impressed by. It doesn’t need to be an essay. Just write one line describing why they’re awesome.
You can do these anytime of the year, they’re not just for International Women’s Day. Creating a culture where we cheer & support each other everyday, will make a big difference. Don’t expect to change the world overnight. By starting with the small things, you’ll make a big difference.
