IWD 2021 - what can we hope for this year?

irishwomenslobby.ie

This looks like an interesting event for anyone interested.

The only thing I am hoping for, which will have a disproportionately positive impact on working mothers, is the reopening of schools In England on 8-March.

Oh yes - painted pebbles are a great idea!

My kids are older, but I love the idea of doing things with little ones to honour women's day, in the same way that I used to do Christmas and Easter crafts with mine. What a brilliant way opportunity to talk about women's history and pass on stories of female courage in the face of oppression in a very natural, unforced way. Laying down strong foundations to counteract some of the stonewall bullshit that will be piled on later.

God, I would love it if a woman in the street offered me a suffragette ribbon pin on IWD. (Or a bun.)

Brilliant to see Bloom and Wild's list. Am now thinking of sending flowers to a friend to say Happy IWD...

Liquorishtoffee - I was thinking of this as a potential thread so glad you've suggested it!

And another thread might be about the book or the woman or the incident that first made you think, I dont have to accept being pigeon holed and talked down to, have my horizons limited because I am a woman.

Not sure if it is too much to ask (or expect?!) but if we agreed not to start conversations on these threads but just read through them.

Have been trying to think of positives as so many threads on FWR are about what is going wrong.

So maybe a thread to remember what has been good over the past twelve months.

Bloom & wild have listed their 8 inspirational women

www.bloomandwild.com/8-inspiring-women

Now can other companies do it like this please!!!

The average woman in the street would probably prefer a bun tbh

I guess we could ice lemon buns with the suffragette colours and quotes, Michelle!

Really I'd just like a large box of lemon buns suffragette ribbon pins with 'courage calls to courage' on them, and go somewhere to hand them out randomly to any women around who want one.

the phrase 'I make a really empowering lemon bun' is wholly stuck in my head right now

Love the idea of suffragette ribbon decoration! Suffragette painted pebbles also a really lovely idea.

Painting pebbles and stones sounds like a great idea, and can also write messages on them.

Great ideas for online and offline actions. ❤️

Could include the twitter addresses of women we admire.

Thinking about trying ribons to trees and wanting to do something that's not adding too much clutter to the environment...
Many groups were created for painted pebbles two years ago.
It might be good to paint those, as I bet they'll spring up in Facebook groups all over.

I'd like to take IWD offline and out into the real world and if councils, police stations etc won't fly the flag for us I was wondering about doing it for ourselves, in the spirit of sticker woman?

I'm not thinking of anything large scale or controversial, just something small like tying ribbon (in suffragette colours?) to the front door or a tree in the front garden, or sticking a picture of a purple white and green rainbow in the front window or whatever. A day for women to remember the achievements of the women who came before them and honour them quietly.

(And if anyone wanted to do it more publicly, in the true spirit of sticker woman that would also be great!)

Since last IWD we've had the rash of rainbows for the NHS in the pandemic, so I think these individual demonstrations of support are more of a thing these days. It would be brilliant if, in a few years time, you could take a walk through any town in the first week of March and see small private statements of female solidarity.

That sounds like a lovely idea.

Great ideas.

It might be good to have several different threads, on different themes.

There's a film / documentary on Netflix called What were they thinking... It's about feminists. Those who are interested could set a time to watch it and then discuss it here in a thread? Stuff like that.

Maybe a thread to share music that women have found inspiring. Or historical figures.

Posters who are or were activists could tell us a funny or memorable story.

Liquorishtoffee - I was thinking about this over night and wondered if we could have a special thread for IWD. And we each prepare something (eek!) to post. But then I ran into the "theme" problem.

Should it all be uplifting, or most radicalising moment on mumsnet (or IRL?), or ...

And would be hard not to have responses (if only eacah thread could create sub threads from within it).

Still thinking, but maybe images would be good.

I would watch that!