Happy IWD

Today is International Woman's Day. It is the day when we should reflect on the rights that women across the globe are still struggling to attain. Simple rights like the right to life;  to be educated; to have control over your own body; to have a job commensurate with your skills and experience and to be paid accordingly; to wear what you like not what you dad, husband or priest tells you. If you believe in these kinds of equalities, you are a feminist.  Because whatever others would have you believe, feminism is not about hating men or wearing dungarees or knitting your own muesli. It is about equality  and justice pure and simple. Just because biology dictates that we are the ones that have the children, it shouldn't automatically relegate us to second class citizenry.

While in Britain we are not living under the heavy yoke of oppression that women in other parts of the world are having to bear, be in no doubt we still have a long way to go. Power is not evenly divided, not even close. Where are the women in public life? In politics? In the judiciary? In the board room? In the City? Yes, there we can name a few examples in each, but it is just a few. If there were more, a lot more, I think life (for men and women) might be a bit fairer.

Today is also the day we should celebrate the achievements of women, the women who have blazed a path to make our lives (men's and women's) better. Here are a few of the women who have influenced me and made my life better (in no particular order):

• Rosa Parks, civil rights leader
• Albertina Sisulu, one of the great leaders of the apartheid struggle
• Josephine Baker, jazz diva, civil rights activist, persistent breaker of barriers
• Beatrice Webb, social reformer and founder of the LSE
• Millicent Garrett Fawcett, early feminist and suffragist 
• Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman in Britain to qualify as a doctor, early feminist and suffragist,  sister of Millicent
• Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia, suffrage activists
• Sojourner Truth, former slave, minister and women's activist
• Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of feminism
• Jane Austen, creator of Lizzie Bennett and so many more remarkably strong women
• Margaret Atwood, novelist and poet, if you haven't read The Handmaiden's Tale do so immediately
• Simone de Beauvoir, feminist and existentialist
• Eleanor Roosevelt, so much more than the First Lady, a social reformer, champion of the rights of women and civil rights for African Americans and Japanese Americans, the first Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, overseeing the drafting of the UN Declaration of Human Rights
• Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, the first non-white woman to open her own law practice in South Africa, the first non-white woman to serve as a judge in South Africa, a judge and then President of the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda where she established that rape and sexual assault could constitute acts of genocide before being appointed as a judge to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She is also very funny and my aunt
• Adelaide Joseph, my mother who fought the fight for women's rights in apartheid South Africa and who together with my feminist father taught me and my sisters not to let our gender limit our ambitions or lives 

So woman or man, spend some time today thinking about what you can do to close the gender gap and about the women who have helped to make you who you are. 

Mixing it up

I am interested in equality. I am concerned about how the Establishment is still the bastion of well-heeled, white and largely middle-aged men. 

Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with such men per se. I do, however, have a problem with the fact that in 21st-century Britain so much of power (political, economic and social) is still held by them. This is why last year I became a trustee of the Fawcett Society which  has been working to close the gender gap in Britain since 1866. It is also why I decided to tackle the issue of the lack of equality and diversity in my very own profession and agreed to become the chair of the PRCA Diversity Network a few weeks ago. 

For those of you not familiar with the world of pr (of which the PRCA is the professional body), I should report that it is predominantly white; a 2011 survey revealed that just 3 per cent of the profession were Asian, 2 per cent African or Caribbean. And it isn’t just the lack of ethnic diversity that is a problem. The profession scores badly when it comes to age, gender, disability and socio-economic group. Things are better than they were.  When I first started in consultancy 10 years ago I was struck by the dominance of white, privately-educated men. There were very few people who looked or spoke like me. Thankfully now we are seeing more women in the boardroom. But the profession is still far from representative. 

Things have to change. And before anyone gets all Daily Mail on me, this is not about political correctness (it won't surprise you I detest this phrase) , it is about attracting the best people. There is only one discrimination I tolerate and that is to favour bright people. Currently the pr profession is missing out on lots of bright people.  

We held the first meeting of the network last week. It was both fantastic and disappointing. Fantastic because it was the first time I had been to an industry event with so many young colleagues from ethnic minorities. It was great to see that these bright young things have not been put off by the image of our profession and had penetrated the walls of the bastion. Disappointing because they were the ones interested enough to attend. It would have been great if one or two of the posh, white blokes who run the profession had turned up. If things are going to change, they need to engage, they need to play their part to make a difference. I am determined that they will. Watch this space. 

Driven to distraction by the men in robes

Whilst running this evening, I was reflecting on the fact in spite of my desire to extend (still don't know if that is the right verb - advice please) my hinterland, all my blogs so far this year have been firmly in my heartland. So I decided that I would write about the moon. Why not? I love it. Its beautiful and fascinating. So why isn't this post about the moon? Because of the Church of England, that's why.

Not for the first time the CoE has driven me to distraction. Today it was the revelation that the House of Bishops, one of the three houses of the General Synod, has agreed to allow gay clergy to become bishops. "Now Tanya," I hear you ask, "you're an equality freak, surely you support this?" Well, I wish I could. But this isn't about equality. The Bishops are just perpetuating inequality. For let us remember that only gay men who agree to remain celibate are allowed to take the cloth. They have even gone as far as countenancing gay men who are in civil partnerships becoming priests as long as that partnership is not sexual. What we learnt today is that the Bishops are cool with allowing celibate gay priests start wearing purple robes. A fudge if ever I saw one. And of course as recently as November the General Synod blocked women from becoming bishops. So as long as you are a straight man you are welcome to carry a crook but if you are a non-celibate gay priest or a women forget it.

I acknowledge that it was not the House of Bishops that put the mockers on female bishops and I suspect the Bishops are not trying to be obstructive when it comes to gay bishops. No I think they are desperately trying to stop the Church being rent asunder by the opposing forces that can't agree whether it should join the 21st century. So they are trying to sneak reform through, centimetre by centimetre, rather than drive forward real change. I can't see this strategy working. The CoE needs a new one. I appreciate that is easier said than done. I recognise that the Anglican Communion in Africa, Latin America and parts of the USA is socially very conservative but hey, I am not insisting they adopt my liberal positions. I am just suggesting that the new Archbishop of Canterbury gets a grip. He must make some tough choices about he wants what the Church to be and who he wants to include amongst his flock. He needs to be a leader.