The best from International Women's Day

Yesterday marked International Women’s Day, (IWD) which celebrates both how far we have come in terms of gender equality, and also, reminds us of how much further we need to go. Yet this year, the spirit of unity feels stronger. Movements like #MeToo and #Timesup have foregrounded womens' fight against sexual harassment, it’s been 100 years since the suffragettes won us the right to vote in Britain and headlines are consistently pointing out the fact that women are asking for what they deserve – equality.

But, while women around the world passionately continue to fight for their rights, the statistics are dampening. Females in the UK and across the world are still underpaid. According to a new report by the TUC, women in the UK effectively work for free for more than two months a year due to the gender pay gap. Figures from the Office for National Statistics, which examined full and part-time workers found that the pay gap stands at 18.4%. “This … means that women effectively work for free for the first 67 days of the year,” said the TUC.