Today is International Women’s Day. Sunday is Mother’s Day.

Whoopy doo. Two days in every 365 to acknowledge the contribution of 51 per cent of the population. 

And before any men pipe up with: "When’s Men’s Day?” the answer is always: “Every beeping day.”

Today, virtue-signalling will take over social media with self-congratulatory businesses boasting about their “fantastic” female leaders with hashtags #iwd2024 #InspireInclusion encouraging us all to strike the #inspireinclusion pose by making a heart shape with our hands.

Sunday will be all about the schmaltz Hallmark-card gushing about the qualities associated with motherhood; caring, soft, loving…

The week as #iwd2024 asks us to imagine “a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women's equality.

Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity”, the most harrowing documentary was aired on the BBC.

It told the story of, and behind, the abduction, rape and murder of a young woman walking home, duped into a car by a serving police officer using his warrant card. 

Justice for Sarah Everard traced a catalogue of horrific failures in the police system that led to her horrific fate three years ago – and led to her mother on Sunday, and every other day for the rest of her life, mourning her youngest child and reliving her terror that night.

It shone a light on how women making complaints about sexual offences by her murderer, Wayne Couzens had been ignored for years.

He continued to work as a police officer, and to indecently expose himself. The longer his behaviour was left unchallenged, the more untouchable he must have felt to continue, and escalate.

The documentary showed the vilest sexual content messages between him and other police officers about domestic violence victims, displaying an incontrovertible disgusting view of women that reached way beyond disparaging - in fact, of no value whatsoever. 

These were people paid from the public purse to protect us and keep us safe. Not one or two bad apples but a culture of toxicity and misogyny.

Sarah’s life had so little value to her police officer killer, he calmly went to buy a coffee in Costa, and, the next day, after going home to his family, set light to her body, calmly calling the vet to make an appointment standing by her body as she burned.  

Women don’t feel safe. Nor do women don’t feel valued., however many hashtags, International Women’s Day missions and Mother’s Days.

The gender pay gap remains very real, childcare costs are astronomical, with women working for virtually nothing once nursery bills are paid to keep their careers on track. 

At work, they’re spoken over, their points dismissed and mansplained to.

We’ve all seen the viral video of the professional golfer practicing at a driving range when she’s approached by a stranger who proceeds to explain to her where she is going wrong, giving her the benefit of his 20 years’ golfing experience. 

Today, businesses will talk about their “valuable” female employees, pushing them to the front for photoshoots, ticking off IWD on their to do list. 

Behind the scenes, their payslips rarely bear scrutiny to reflect how much they are really valued.

Last year, on IWD, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport highlighted “the importance of equal opportunities” when its pay gap had worsened by 10 per cent the previous year.

What do these one-off female days achieve? Very little has changed for a woman’s lot and how we are treated in decades. The classic one step forward, two steps back.

This week, doctors voiced concern about the increased medicalisation of the natural process of menopause. The more we talk about female issues, the more someone will use it as a reason to marginalise women, leading even more discrimination.

On Sunday, we celebrate mothers, who on Friday and Monday, and every other day, face discrimination in the workplace, substandard maternity services – half England’s maternity services were rated inadequate or requiring improvement last year, a 10 per cent increase on 2022 – and in too many settings to list here.

There will be saccharine slushing celebrating mothers ‘qualities’ on Sunday but what about their wider contribution?

In Sarah – and her mother’s – names, let’s think about the true contribution of women and come together to make the world a better place for girls and women.

Learn to save a life
What have The Bee Gees’ Staying Alive, Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust and Baby Shark by Pinkfong got in common?

They all provide perfect rhythm for life-saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR.)

Thousands more lives could be saved every day if more people knew how to perform CPR.

Everyone should learn it because 80 per cent of cardiac arrests happen in the home or the workplace. 

Every year, 30,000 people in the UK will collapse with cardiac arrest. Their hearts will either have stopped beating completely or be beating erratically. 

Receiving CPR makes a real difference between life and death. 

One in 10 people who receive CPR survive, and about half go on to live normal lives. 

It’s not difficult and, used with a defibrillator, survival chances are doubled.
It’s empowering and could make the difference in keeping a loved one by your side – or a total stranger alive.