Today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.
Here in the affluent West, we can afford to feel pretty happy that we have many of the same opportunities as men. But, as Lucy Mangan reminded us at the weekend, there are lots of reasons why today is still important in the UK.
Worldwide, the plight of women is a far more depressing story. As this short film, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood and starring Daniel Craig, shows, women do two-thirds of the world’s work, but earn only 10 per cent of the money and own just 1 per cent of the property. One in four women is a victim of domestic violence and, every week, two women in the UK are killed by a current or former partner.
So, yes, International Women’s Day is still relevant. Particularly at a time when a TV actor with a history of violence against women is held up as an ironic icon.
Today also marks the start of the Birds Eye View Film Festival, an event that we are very excited about in the Psychologies office because our editor, Louise Chunn, is hosting a question and answer session at the festival tomorrow night (get your tickets now).
The festival celebrates female filmmakers (just 6 per cent of film directors are women), from Lucy Walker to Susanne Bier, whose Oscar-winning film is showing at various venues around London as part of the festival.
As the actress Rosamund Pike said earlier this year, ‘Ambition shouldn’t desexualise us or make us uncomfortable. The only thing it should do is level the playing field. If we’re going to take on the challenge of making the film business a 50/50 industry then sexism just has to go out of our vocabulary. We can compete healthily by being gloriously, attractively, sexily ambitious.’
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