Try again, without the personal info this time! 
Thanks for all the comments so far - feeling a bit more confident now! DH is very excited and keen!
Let me tell you why I organised this event. A couple of months ago, a man I know said to me ?I don?t think feminism is relevant nowadays?. I didn?t know the answer, but something in me told me he was wrong. So I thought I?d better go away and read up about it.
I found out that, despite the equality laws women fought for and won, in the UK we women are still paid 22.6% less than men per hour, a situation that is due to get worse once the cuts really start to hit. Girls do better in education, but they are still being steered towards gender-stereotypical subjects, which don?t lend themselves to high earning careers later in life. The glass ceiling still exists and women still do the majority of the work in the home (not in mine, I hasten to add! ), even if they have full-time paid jobs themselves.
So, I thought to myself ?well, that?s a bit unfair! I?ll have to do my best to make sure my daughters know they can do science or maths or engineering despite being girls.
But?then I found out some even worse reasons why we still need feminism. I found out that one in four women in our country, will experience domestic violence at some point in her life; and that a victim will, on average, have been attacked by her partner over 35 times before she calls the police. ONE IN FOUR!!! I thought most of us were now lucky enough to live in equal, mutually respectful relationships! I couldn?t believe ? I still can?t - how wrong I was! One incident of domestic violence is reported to the police EVERY MINUTE! And every week ? EVERY WEEK! ? two women are murdered by their male partner who has probably already been attacking her for some time. Women who murder their male partners are usually found to have been being abused for quite some time before the murder.
And rape! Women are more worried about rape than about any other crime - probably because only 5% of reported rapes result in a conviction ? I say reported rapes because we know that many women do not report rapes, thanks to the peddling of rape myths such as it being the victim?s fault for dressing wrongly, or drinking, or being in the wrong area at night.
I came away from reading these statistics utterly enraged, and concerned for the future of my daughters. Yes, there is definitely still a need for feminism!
But this particular event is not about the UK. This is about the even more horrific situation abroad, in war-torn and developing countries. Countries where daughters are more likely to be raped than learn to read. Countries where women are, as a weapon of war, routinely dragged from their villages, brutally and repeatedly raped and mutilated. When they manage to crawl back to their home, they find themselves shunned by their families and their communities. And, of course, they may well have contracted HIV and other sexually transmitted illnesses to compound the horrific injuries they are likely to have suffered.
And, worldwide, every single minute, a woman dies in childbirth or pregnancy in situations that could have been avoided had they had adequate medical care.
I felt overwhelmed. What on earth can one woman do about this? Thankfully, as I found out, there is not just one woman who is angry about these injustices. There are many, many organisations full of women and men who want to change things. One of those organisations is Women For Women International.
Women for Women International works with socially excluded women in eight countries where war and conflict have devastated lives and communities. Each woman they serve has her own story?some of loved ones murdered, and others of physical and emotional trauma. Most have endured a struggle for survival. When they enroll women in their one-year program, they learn job skills and receive business training so they can earn a living. They come to understand their rights and how to fight for those rights in their homes, their communities and their nations and become leaders. Women for Women International (WfWI) believes that lasting change can only be achieved when women have access to both knowledge and resources.
Two years ago, on International Women?s Day, they organised for women from the DR Congo and Rwanda to meet on a bridge between their two countries to spread a message of peace in their countries. Last year, they were joined by over 20,000 men and women around the world, who stood in solidarity on 119 bridges. This year, there will be Join Me On The bridge events on 314 bridges in 53 countries around the world - we are in good company! As well as the WFWI events, there are countless other conferences, marches and protests going on
This year, the most urgent issue is Afghanistan. Life for Afghan women did improve slightly when the Taliban regime fell, but still the situation is dire. Education for women increases dramatically the chance of their children surviving beyond 5 years of age; and also allows them to pull themselves a little further out of the oppressed lives they lead. But in the countryside of Afghanistan, the education of girls comes with a high-price. Girls walking to school frequently get acid sprayed in their faces, and school teachers who teach girls get shot. 87% of Afghan women report being beaten on a regular basis and the maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan is the third highest in the world.
In June the UN troops will withdraw. You?d have thought, wouldn?t you, that the powers that be would be working hard to make sure that any peace negotiations would listen to women and work with them to ensure that their lives don?t deteriorate again once the troops leave? Oh no! They had to be pressured heavily to allow just 10 token women onto their 70-strong committee.
I learnt about this issue from a workshop I attended run by Women For Women International, where I also heard about the Join Me On The Bridge campaign. So, I thought, this is what I can do. This is one thing I can do to make a small impact on the inequalities affecting women everywhere. On the 100th anniversary of International Women?s Day, I can find a way to join with women all around the world to make a bloody big noise and fuss and tell as many people as possible that THESE INJUSTICES CANNOT CONTINUE!!!
By standing here today, you all are showing your support for women in war torn countries around the world, and particularly for the 100 brave Afghan women who are risking their lives standing on a bridge in Kabul, asking for an equal say in the corrupt High Peace Council, who are already negotiating with the Taliban at the expense of women?s rights.
Please, if you haven?t already, sign our petition that Claire is bringing round, calling for women to have an equal seat at the negotiating table.
There are collection buckets going round ? any donations you can offer will be sent to Women For Women International to support their work.
And consider sponsoring a woman through WFWI, which costs £27 a month.
Thank you all for being here.
Please could we all now hold a minute?s silence in support for women suffering around the world?
And now a couple of photographers are going to go onto the main bridge to take a photograph of us ? make sure you?ve got some bubbles to blow, or flags or placards to wave!