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International Women's Day 2021

IWD, International Women's Day, 2021...

An annual celebration since 1911, International Women’s Day is now in it’s 110th year and will no doubt be celebrated all over the world!

Today, we want to talk about women in work and how this has evolved over the years. Many individuals have faced difficulty with regards to careers and inequality in the workplace due to their gender and its surprising to see this still happens to some extent.

The past year has been accompanied with some extra challenges due to the pandemic, seeing a shift in how people work and where they work from. Those with children have had to divide their time between working from home and assisting their children with homeschooling, and we really do have to commend them, because it’s been pretty tough.

But, back to women in work in general. Years ago, vacancies in most jobs were gender specific, excluding women from a lot of the higher paid and well respected jobs. We’ve come a long way in recent years. There has definitely been a shift in career interests, and we’ve moved from being the traditional carer of the family to a provider - someone who goes out to work to provide for their family. A lot of families nowadays have reversed roles too – more women act as the main breadwinner while some men stay at home.

Women are taking the leap and applying for more senior roles and most importantly, they’re succeeding which is fantastic to see. Facilities Management as an industry is no different. A high number of senior roles which were male-dominated in the past are now being applied for by women, proving that these roles aren’t as gender specific as they were made to seem. Typically, women would have been underrepresented in these types of roles before, but it’s encouraging to see more and more companies are considering women as well as men for them.

Ann Allen MBE, CEO, Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors said: “If we are to attract the young talent that our industry so urgently needs, we must ensure that we are inclusive and reflect the diversity of our society. International Women’s Day is an opportunity for each of us to reflect whether we do challenge the norm and enable women to be successful in our industry. I would encourage you to do this, not just on International Women’s Day, but to ensure that every day you choose to challenge and provide the leadership that our sector needs.”

So, there you go. Although there still seems to be a way to go in some sense, it’s wonderful to see the dynamic slowly change and to see women feeling more empowered than ever before – if that’s not a cause for celebration, we don’t know what is!

Happy International Women’s Day from the Team at Bridge!