I’m an International Women’s Day skeptic.

And I approached it this week with extra trepidation – would the International Women’s Day website finally read the room this year, of all years?

We’ve seen the release of the Epstein files, the farcical UK Supreme Court shenanigans actively harming trans women, the amazing Gisele Pelicot publishing her story, the ongoing genocides in Palestine, Sudan and Congo, the bombing of school girls in Iran, the continued rollback of women’s rights in the US, and so much more around the world that’s materially affecting women and girls.

And what’s our theme this year? #givetogain splashed across a photo of a woman holding her hands out.

FFS.

So, please, if your organisation is marking this day, please, please check the UN Women website. Did you know International Women’s Day is a UN initiative? A lot of people either don’t appear to know this, or don’t realise the website setting the sanitised #theme every year isn’t affiliated to the UN (pretty sure it’s run by a marketing agency?)

Rights. Justice. Action.

‘International Women’s Day 2026 comes at a time when justice systems are under strain. Conflict, repression, and political tensions are weakening the rule of law.

The result – women and girls have just 64 per cent of the legal rights of men.

Women are turned away, not believed, revictimized, or priced out of legal support. Equality never arrives.’

Sending love and solidarity to all the righteously angry women in my life. You make the world a better place.

(Pictured: my daughter wearing a ‘suffragette hat’ I made her – a good conversation starter while feeding the ducks)