Celebrating International Women's Day

Shaw Trust's Director of Policy, Social Value and Strategic Comms, Sara Allen , has written her thoughts about the opportunities we all have to create change by celebrating #InternationalWomensDay.

Happy International Women's Day

This is an important opportunity to reflect on equality, fairness and impartiality.

These should be a given. But women have had to fight, sometimes literally, for equity in every area of life. History has never been kind to powerful women, who have often encountered prejudice and resistance.

Well into the third decade of the 21st century, we are still fighting.

But there is a group of women for whom that fight is much, much harder: disabled women.

Disabled women want to be included in society, want to contribute, want to belong, and they have an unequivocal right to do so – but so often disabled women find themselves excluded.

For disabled women, using public transport, visiting public buildings, getting jobs, getting to work, buying clothes, eating out, meeting friends – doing the things in life that the rest of us take for granted – present enormous difficulties.

The barriers are societal.

Disabled women are doing their best to change that: running businesses, leading campaigns, working in worlds as diverse as health, politics and construction, and refusing to let lack of access and societal constructs get in their way.

At Shaw Trust we recognize many of these women in our annual campaign called the Disability Power 100.

The Disability Power 100 recognises the 100 most influential disabled people living and working in the UK – and it allows us all to see that aspiration and ambition can be fulfilled, regardless of disability or impairment.

80% of the Disability Power 100 Top Ten 2022 are women – and it’s a campaign that chimes absolutely with International Women’s Day.

Dr Nancy Doyle, a business leader recognized in last year’s Disability Power 100 said:

“The Neurodiversity sector has historically excluded women from diagnosis and representation in leadership, it is my honour to be part of a new generation of female, Neurodivergent leaders. Representation matters, you cannot be what you cannot see.

“My hope is that through my own transparency and path forging I make it easier for the next generation of women to self-advocate and come into their power.”

Maria Grazia Zedda, Senior EDI Manager at HS2 and Disability Power 100 Public Sector leader, comments:

“As a disabled female leader in the sector I feel we need to bring about greater awareness of the intersectional barriers that disabled female leaders experience as a result of barriers that still persist in our society, due to bias, discrimination, misogyny and ableist assumptions.

“Groups representing different but overlapping protected characteristics should ally with each other to help drive change across the board.”

So, as we mark International Women’s Day, I am asking you to dwell on the goal of helping to make society more equal and fairer for ALL women – including every woman who lives with disability. And to dwell on what it is that YOU can do about it.

You could start by nominating a woman to be recognised at our Disability Power 100 2023 awards, who you think is changing how disability is perceived, and by spreading the word – telling everyone you know to get involved.

That would be truly feminist act for #IWD2023.