International Women’s Day

 

We hope you are celebrating International Women’s Day like we are at Thomson & Bancks where half of our partnership are female and the majority of our lawyers! Our first female partner was invited to celebrate a famous woman in our firm’s history at Oxford University last Autumn; Gwyneth Bebb.

She became the wife of one of our founding fathers; T. Thomson Weldon. Bebb v Law Society is a famous legal case where she sued the solicitors’ governing body for failing to recognise women as people. Therefore, denied her and peers qualifying as a Solicitor after gaining law degrees. For our full blog on the amazing woman click on link below.

 

Today, our legal team consists of 74% women, with 4 out of 8 of our partnership being female! Thomson & Bancks is proud to have such strong representation, but we’re just as aware that the legal industry has a long way to go to achieve complete systemic equality for women – especially when it comes to representation in the higher ranks… which brings us to the message of International Woman’s Day (IWD).

International Women’s Day – Better the balance, better the world

This is the call made by IWD to end inequality between the genders. We are all encouraged to run an event; launch a project or initiative; deliver a female-focused activity; activate a marketing campaign; develop resources; conduct research; make a video and/or run social media posts like this one.

The 2019 theme for IWD is ‘Think equal, build smart, innovate for change’. It aims to find innovative ways in which we can advance gender equality and the empowerment of women. The focus is particularly in the areas of social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure.

 

 

Even in an age of digital opportunity, trends indicate a growing gender digital divide, with women being under-represented in key fields such as technology, engineering, design and science. So how do we ensure that women’s ideas and experiences equally influence the design and implementation of the innovations that shape our future societies? There has been extraordinary progress made in the past half century in the West but positive role models and changes in our culture is still required so that gender stereotypes are not instilled at school and even at home.

We could all help by thinking about buying colour coded or feminine/masculine branded toys and clothes. Research has shown that by age 6, our children are affected by gender bias and whilst recognising that girls perform better at tests at that age, they will allocate the better paid jobs to the boys when role playing.

 

 

The ultimate aim is to ban inequality by 2030, specifically the UN set the following goals to achieve this on IWD in 2014:

• ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and Goal-4 effective learning outcomes.
• ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.
• end all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.
• eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.
• eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

 

 

International Women’s Day – Giving Young Women a Voice

In the spirit of International Women’s Day, we would like to encourage our readers to give their support to a young carer that has shown strength beyond her years. As you may know, Thomson & Bancks supports the charity Gloucestershire Young Carers, and one of the carers that they support was recently nominated for an award! Aura is now a finalist in the Young Person of the Year Award sponsored by Co-op Midcounties, and we want to do our part to make sure she gets the recognition she deserves.

As a young carer, Aura receives no government financial support for looking after family in need of extra care, in spite of the fact that she has to balance these heavy responsibilities with her own schooling. She has not only excelled in spite of this, she has gone even further, advocating for her peers and recently joining a project run by The Mosquito Mission charity. To Support Aura for her wonderful efforts, you can vote for her as ‘Nominee 2’ here. [AWARDS NOW CLOSED]

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