It’s International Women’s Day—a day to celebrate the achievement of women and take action for equality. Over 100 years after the first International Women’s Day, how are we really doing when it comes to equality for women?

Living in a country like Canada, it’s easy to be complacent. We already treat women as equals, right? Yes, it is illegal to openly discriminate against women in this country. But we still have work to do.

This post was originally posted in March 2021 and updated in June 2024.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is Choose to Challenge. In this post, I’ve got some sobering statistics on the status of women in Canada and around the world. I hope after reading, you’ll realize we all need to Choose to Challenge every day. Our daughters’ future depends on it.

An eye-opening short story

A few weeks ago, my daughter was reading a short story for her high school English class. The story, A&P by John Updike is narrated from the perspective of Sammy, a teenage boy working in a supermarket. When three girls walk into the store wearing nothing but bathing suits, the narrator goes into great detail about his thoughts on the girls’ bodies, among other things.

As my daughter was working on her homework, I did a quick search to learn more about the story. Some of the comments on the websites I found were interesting. One commenter said we shouldn’t “get all worked up” about the story because it was written in the 1960’s when objectification of women was normal behaviour.

When I read the comment to my daughter, she laughed and said “Nothing has changed. Every teenage boy I know could have written this story.”

Over the years, this kind of treatment of young women has been justified by saying “boys will be boys”. If we dismiss this behaviour from teenage boys as normal, why does the #MeToo movement and the prevalence of violence against women surprise us? Why are we surprised when someone like Brock Turner gets a tap on the wrist for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman and his father dismisses his crime as “20 minutes of action”?

Why we must Choose to Challenge!

Equality for women in Canada

If you think we don’t have a gender equality issue in our society, have a look at these statistics on the status of women in Canada from the Canadian Women’s Foundation.

• One woman or girl is violently killed every 48 hours, usually by men.
• Sexual assault is the only violent crime in Canada that is not declining. 82% of sexual assault victims under the age of 18 are girls. And 80% of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim.
• 43% of women have been sexually harassed in the workplace.  
• 30% of single mothers are raising their children in poverty.
• Full-time working women earn just 75 cents for every dollar earned by men.
• Women are 60% less likely than men to move from middle management to the executive ranks.
• Women hold just 29% of seats in our federal parliament, putting us in 59^th place on the global ranking. (2024)

And around the world

Beyond our borders, there are similar areas of concern around the world according to the United Nations’ report The World’s Women 2020.

• Less than 50% of working-age women are in the workforce, compared to 74% of men.
• Every day, women spend three times as many hours as men on unpaid domestic and care work.
• Women held only 28% of managerial positions globally in 2019. There has been little movement in this number in the last 25 years.
• Women are underrepresented in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). Only 35% of graduates in those fields are women.
• Around one-third of women worldwide have experienced violence at the hands of an intimate partner.
• More than 133 women are killed by their intimate partner or a family member every day. (Source: Women On Guard)

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Why equality for women matters

It’s clear from these statistics that we’re a long way from achieving gender equality. But why should we care?

The Canadian Women’s Foundation cites 5 reasons gender equality benefits everyone:

• It leads to a more peaceful world. Gender equality is a more reliable predictor of peace than a country’s GDP or political climate.
• It makes economic sense. In Canada alone, eliminating gender equality could benefit the economy by over $400 billion.
• It boosts business performance. Companies with high levels of diversity are more likely to financially outperform their peers.
• It leads to happier relationships.
• It makes children’s lives better. Studies have shown that when women thrive, children and families also thrive.

When I entered the workforce almost 40 years ago, sexual harassment and gender discrimination were common. I hoped my daughters would have a different experience as they join the workforce. We have made progress, but we still have a long way to go.

We must do better. Our daughters are depending on us.

What are your thoughts on International Women’s Day? Join the conversation below.