What would they say now?

A few years ago, I wrote about Minnie Lansbury and the Suffragette movement, these women served as role models for generations of women and indeed men. I often wonder what these pioneering women would think of the world we live in now. Have we really made the progress we think we have? Yesterday we celebrated International Women’s day, with that in mind I wanted to pose the question – how far have we come?

Almost 10 years ago the United Nations created a body tasked with accelerating and achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment. This was a monumental step in recognising the importance of women on our economies, societies and our world. Women are, after all half of the world’s population, not supporting, developing and growing women means we, as a society loose half of worlds potential.

I recently read an article in the Scotsman newspaper  highlighting how a Scottish female scientist (Dr Kate Broderick) is leading the way in finding a vaccine for the Covid-19 virus. I wonder what Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) the first British/American doctor would think? Elizabeth Blackwell was a pioneer of her time, leading the way for other doctors and scientists to develop exceptional world-class healthcare. Blackwell was passionate about “preventative care and personal hygiene, recognizing that male doctors often caused epidemics by failing to wash their hands between patients”. How relevant that seems today – in a world where we are fighting a virus that has touched 80 countries around the world, Elizabeth Blackwell’s passion to prevent disease seems especially apt.

Women have of course, excelled in more than just medicine, in fact when I started to write this, I didn’t intend to focus on what women have achieved in medicine, I wanted to focus on the importance of equality and how women’s achievements have helped contribute to an equal world.

This year International Women's Day 2020 campaign theme is #EachforEqual , The campaign is asking us to flight bias, broaden our minds and help us to celebrate women’s achievements.

I would like to take this a step further and suggest that we should all celebrate everyone’s achievements regardless of gender, after all if we enable each other to succeed we will have equality. This might seem quite a na?ve perspective, and perhaps it is, but we need to aspire to have equality even if perhaps as a society we are not quite there.

We have made great strides forwards, we have changed the world for the better however, we must not become complacent, we must all continue to support women’s development and fight for gender equality.

I was recently reminded of the following quote:

 “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenges of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance”     Kofi Annan (Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006). 

In 2020 let us all promote equality and let us continue to promote and progress with the exceptional examples of previous generations.