International Women’s Day

Every year, International Women’s Day comes around, bringing with it social media posts, corporate statements, and reminders of how far we have come; and how far we still have to go. I appreciate the sentiment, but I can’t help but wonder what happens when the day is over. When the hashtags fade and everyone returns to business as usual.

At 42, I am fully myself. A mother of two teenage daughters and a 20-year-old son, a preschool teacher, a writer. I move through life with a deep awareness of what it means to be a woman. Not just in the grand, historical sense, but in the everyday reality of expectations, invisible labour, and the contradictions we navigate.

I teach young children, and in them, I see the rawest versions of society’s norms taking shape. Girls who start out bold, only to be told to be good and nice. Boys who are gentle but quickly learn that emotions are a liability. It starts early and seeps into everything unless we make a conscious effort to change it.

That is the thing about equality. It is not just about opportunities in the workplace or the right to vote. It has to exist in every part of life, even the inconvenient and uncomfortable ones. It has to be there in the way household responsibilities are shared, in the way boys are taught to respect boundaries, in the way girls are encouraged to take up space without apology. It has to be there when it is messy, when it is hard, when it challenges the systems that benefit from things staying the same.

I celebrate my daughters, who question, challenge, and refuse to accept that things are just the way they are. I celebrate my son, who understands that strength has nothing to do with suppression. I celebrate every woman and girl who demands more, not just today, but every day.

And I remind myself that this is not just about one day in March. It is about the choices we make daily. The things we let slide. The words we challenge. The lessons we pass down. Because equality is not something we acknowledge when it is convenient. It is something we live in every moment, whether the world is ready for it or not.