Today, March 8th is the annual International Women’s Day (IMD)

It all began in 1908 with 15,000 women marching through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

Since then, IWD has grown from strength to strength annually and has now become a global day of recognition and celebration across both developed and developing countries, many of which observe an official holiday. Now, I am not about to stand on a box and burn my bra. I do think many battles have been won, we do have female astronauts and prime ministers, women can work and have a family, women have greater legislative rights and so on. BUT, in many areas, there is still inequality. Women are still not paid equally to their male counterparts, women are still not present in equal numbers in business and politics and women’s health, education and violence against them is still worse than that of men.

IWD is a day to try and make a difference. 1000′s of events are held throughout the world to inspire and connect and to ensure that the future of our girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

As a fun little footnote to this VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE, I decided to find out amongst my family and friends who they thought were their top ten most amazing (non family) women. It was a bit of an eye opener, Daughter R and her mates didn’t include Lady Gaga or Rihanna as I expected, but did include Whitney Houston. My trainer (poor, poor, soul) gave some great names including 2 Fat Ladies and my netballers (yes, you lot….another post for another day) all went for Joanna Lumley!

Here’s the list, no prizes for guessing who made No.1

Margaret Thatcher

The Queen

Florence Nightingale

Mother Teresa

Princess Diana

Emily Pankhurst

JK Rowling

Madonna

Oprah Winfrey

Judy Dench

http://www.internationalwomensday.com