First published on Exchange Chambers, 8 March 2021.

Today, 8th March 2021, the world marks International Women’s Day. This year’s theme is “choose to challenge.”

In grasping the invitation to choose to challenge, I choose to challenge why it is that women both here in the UK and around the world have had to fight for the right to vote, to own property, to hold their own bank accounts and take out loans, for equal pay for work of equal value, for reproductive rights — and even to be able to buy an alcoholic drink at the bar in a pub.

I choose to challenge why it is that the fight for equality is still far from won.

It wasn’t until the Equal Franchise Act 1928 that all women in this country were granted the right to vote. Having secured the vote almost 100 years ago, the composition of our legislative bodies remains far from representative: of the 650 Members of Parliament only 220 are women, and of the 798 members of the House of Lords only 223 are women.

Formal efforts to address inequality in the workplace and in pay only really commenced with the Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 — and the gender pay gap continues to exist.

Within our own profession, women continue to be underrepresented. As of December 2020, women constituted 38.2 per cent of the Bar compared to an estimate of 50.2 per cent of the UK working age population, and women only comprise 16.8% of silks. Women are poorly represented amongst the judiciary: 32% of circuit judges are women, and in the higher courts only 11 of the current 42 Court of Appeal judges are women and only 2 out of 12 Supreme Court justices are women.

Women continue disproportionately to be victims of domestic abuse.

Shockingly, on average a woman is killed by a man every three days. I never cease to be shocked when I recall that until 1991 — the year I was called to the Bar — the fact of marriage and irrevocable consent to sex was often used as a defence to a charge of rape when alleged to have been committed by a man upon his wife.

All of this despite the UK’s commitment to eliminate gender inequality by its ratification of the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women on 7th April 1986.

Whilst I choose to challenge all the ways in which women are treated as lesser than men, excluded from opportunities or otherwise discriminated against, I choose to do so for all women — reminding myself that the inequalities women face are exacerbated for women of colour. The British Medical Journal recently noted that Black women are four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth, and women from Asian ethnic backgrounds face a twofold risk.

I choose to challenge that, and to fight for women’s rights and equality every day in any way I can.

Happy International Women’s Day.