Join me in celebrating International Women's Day

It’s International Women’s Day today - Here’s to the girls! An important day in our calendar to celebrate everything women are capable of… our strengths, our abilities, our uniqueness.

In 2019, it’s all about #balanceforbetter and to me, that means finding that ever-elusive work/play balance in our own lives, along with finding it in a greater gender-balanced world.

And you're probably wondering about my strange pose? Well, part of the day is: "put your hands out and STRIKE THE #BalanceforBetter POSE and make International Women's Day YOUR day - and do what you can to truly make a positive difference for women everywhere".

How beautiful it would be to live in a society where your gender truly didn’t make a difference.  We are more aware of this need, I think, than ever before on the back of the # MeToo movement, and the fact that so many companies are talking about percentages of women on boards and as leaders in our community.  But what I hope we never forget is that what doesn’t make us the same makes us unique.  Balance should come from both our similarities and our differences.

‘Our generation is becoming so busy trying to prove that women can do what men can do that women are losing their uniqueness. Women weren’t created to do everything a man can do. Women were created to do everything a man can’t do.”

I love that quote and wish I knew who said it. Women are unique. We are not men, and nor should we try to be. Our capabilities come from being different. How boring would the world be if we only celebrated what made us all the same?  I believe women (especially rural women) have an incredible ability to just dig in and get the job done. We have vision, drive and adapt to situations. We have to, as country women, because as I’ve said in my novels, if we don’t get on and do the job, there is no one else to do it.

I also believe that women should have every opportunity a man has, absolutely, no question.  But if you are going to put a woman or a man into a job solely based on their gender, I challenge you to find a person who would be happy with that.

And this is my gripe: give a person (woman or otherwise) a job because they have the capability to do it, rather than needing to meet a certain quota, or to make an industry look more balanced. As a woman, I want to earn the right to success, not be handed it because of my sex.  Most people I know would only want a job if they were able to do it. Everyone should be given the opportunity to strive for the very top, and that’s something that hasn’t happened for many years.  But I just hope we’re mindful that putting people into positions that they will fail at will do more harm than good in gender equality.

I think we need to be making sure to even the scales so that the best person gets the job, not the best gender. I firmly believe women can do anything that they choose to. I don’t believe they should be stopped in any way, either.  We bring a lot to the table and should be equally considered for the same roles as men. But I hope that in finding balance for the better, we can celebrate the strengths of both men and women and acknowledge that our unique, wonderful differences are, in fact, the thing that might unite us all in the end.