International Women's Day is celebrated globally on March 8 every year. In different parts of the world the focus of the celebrations ranges from general celebration of respect, appreciation and love towards women for their economic, political and social achievements. An effective Women's Day was the 1975 Icelandic women's strike which paved the way for the first female president in the world: Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

In Australia the political and human rights theme designated by the United Nations is celebrated and the strong political and social awareness of the struggles of women worldwide are brought out and examined in a hopeful manner. Some people celebrate the day by wearing purple ribbons.  I shall be wearing one of my purple jackets (see photos).

The Plus Size Australian Woman is a true inspiration to International Women's Day, because being at ease with the changes in our bodies at different times of our lives demonstrates true acceptance of our characters and potential which have nothing to do with our looks or sexual attractiveness to others!!  Being able to express our confidence and leadership potential is an important part of International Women’s Day.

I was the Vice President of WomensportNSW for 4 years until it was recently merged with Sport NSW to be called Sport NSW (!) and to me nothing demonstrates better the spirit of International Women’s Day than women’s sport like the new Women’s AFL competition being committed to help women and girls achieve their ambitions.

The majority of the readers of my blog are colleagues, some of whom are 40+ women who are over a size 16; some are smaller sizes; some are younger, but all are tremendously glamourous and celebrate their own confidence and personalities in their choice of clothes. 

I overheard a conversation between some of our Councillors the other day in which the Mayor (a man) seemed surprised to hear from some of our women Councillors that women dress for each other, not for men!!  Certainly the women I work with regularly compliment each other on our outfits and shoes, and I think it makes us feel a little bit happier, and appreciated.  I do also congratulate male colleagues if they have made an effort to look smart, and frequently congratulate Theo on his socks!

I have found that discovering glamourous, high quality and Australian made Plus Size Clothing at Swish Fashion has helped my personal confidence tremendously. 

In 2017 the theme of International Women’s Day is #BeBoldForChange. We will be celebrating International Women’s Day at work this year, and I am looking forward to celebrating women and men’s contributions equally, depending on whether our male colleagues come along.

Last year, organisations and individuals around the world supported the #PledgeForParity campaign and committed to help women and girls achieve their ambitions; challenge conscious and unconscious bias; call for gender-balanced leadership; value women and men's contributions equally; and create inclusive flexible cultures. From awareness raising to concrete action, organisations rallied their people to pledge support to help forge gender parity on International Women’s Day and beyond.

But the World Economic Forum predicts the gender gap won't close entirely until 2186. This is too long to wait. Around the world, IWD can be an important catalyst and vehicle for driving greater change for women and moving closer to gender parity, because I don’t know about you, but I would like it to happen a little earlier than that!!

We are running a competition at the moment, to win a $100 voucher each week.