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Why I was wrong to reject International Women’s Day

International Women's Day tech
Image credit: Jane Wakefield

I need to start with a confession. Today is International Women’s Day, but it is a holiday that I’ve never really celebrated. In fact, I’ve never been a fan. As a journalist, IWD was always preceded with a flurry of emails from PRs proffering their female founder or CEO for interviews to tell me their ‘personal journey’.

My counterpoint was always that the story was not strong enough simply because it was about a woman (and in most cases, it was JUST about the fact that someone was a woman). I argued that if they had an interesting story to tell, I didn’t need a specific day to mark it.

And my misogyny didn’t end there. I was also not really a fan of women-only tech groups or spaces. Why segregate or label, I’d think?...