International Women’s day, Part deux.

A few years ago I wrote a post observing that some companies missed the mark when it came to “celebrating” women on International Women’s day, specifically those who used the day to single out and celebrate mothers, making women without children feel unworthy of praise and diminish the professional successes of those with children.

Not wanting to be accused of being a Negative Nelly again (or my made-up equivalent “Negative Nelson”) I’ve tried my very best, I really have, to take IWD posts with a pinch of salt. This year I genuinely have been heartened by some men who have reached out for advice on whether, and how, they should be celebrating women on the day. Bravo allies.

So why am I being such a Negative Nelson this year? Well, let me pick just one example in the current media landscape. The Willy Wonka fiasco in Glasgow. For those living under a rock, the Willy Wonka experience used AI images to sell tickets promising a day of enchantment, fun, and practically unlimited chocolate for visitors. Those unlucky enough to have parted with cash for the event, it fell catastrophically short of expectations and involved a relatively prop-free, disused warehouse with rations of three jelly beans per child. Think Fyre Festival, but for kids.

However amusing for those vicariously living the experience through the posts of the attendees, instead of dragging down the “entrepreneur” behind the fiasco (who, side note, has done a pretty decent job of apologising), hundreds of thousands of people have trolled the heck out of a hardworking actress who was employed by the experience. That, my friends, is precisely why I’m grumpy.

I will always feel like International Women’s day is a bit of a farce when most women’s lived experience is that being a woman in today’s society is still hard. Unnecessarily hard.

To those thinking the trolling of an Oompa Loompa was a societal “one off”, let’s consider the media speculation over the Princess of Wales’ recent surgery or Elon Musk vilifying MacKenzie Scott for donating billions to charities for women and minorities. Not to mention the fascination over a side boob at the Oscars which seemed to gain as much attention as the actual awards won by women (don’t even get me started on the nominees).

Instead of patting each-other on the back re gender statistics, we really should use the day, week and month to look at what more we can do, and learn from times where we might have fallen short, inadvertently or not. Sure, let’s celebrate how far we’ve come, but let’s also challenge ourselves on how much further we need to go.

#negativenelson #grumpyloompa #IWD #smilelove