Happy International Women’s Day
March 8, 2019
Family Service Toronto joins the world today (March 8) in celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and supporting a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is an important catalyst and vehicle for driving greater change for women and equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender. This year, everyone can show support through social media by visiting #BalanceforBetter and taking groundbreaking action to build a gender-balanced world.
“Balance is not a women’s issue, it’s a business issue,” notes the IWD website. “The race is on for the gender-balanced boardroom, a gender-balanced government, gender-balanced media coverage, a gender-balance of employees, more gender-balance in wealth, gender-balanced sports coverage …gender balance is essential for economies and communities to thrive.”
In the lead up to International Women’s Day, Oxfam Canada published its annual Feminist Scorecard, tracking government action to deliver on a feminist agenda, both at home and abroad.
The scorecard assesses the steps that the federal government has taken over the last year to make progress on women’s rights and gender equality. The scorecard focuses on eight policy and spending categories that affect the lives of women in Canada, and world-wide. They include: representation, global development, climate change, care work, gender-based violence, tax, jobs and pay equity, and conflict and crisis.
Scores are reflected on a stoplight range (red, yellow and green) where the Liberal government has either made very little, some, or significant progress. Only representation and global development achieved significant development marks this year.
Read Oxfam’s Full Feminist 2019 Scorecard.