Women’s Protest Across the World Pressing for Progress on International Womens Day 2018

Vanisa Dhiru, president of the National Council of Women New Zealand, said the World Economic Forum’s 2017 global gender gap report suggested that gender equality could still be over 200 years away.
“This is absolutely unacceptable and it’s worse for some groups of women than others, because of racism, transphobia and other forms of oppression,” said Dhiru, who said it was time for New Zealand to embrace the #MeToo and Time’s Up global movements.
Recent exposure of sexual harassment of interns in one of the country’s top legal firms was a sign of progress, she added.
“Kristine Bartlett being named the 2018 New Zealander of the Year, for her work on the pay equity campaign for low-paid care workers, is hugely inspirational and it gives me hope that it might not take the 200 years to reach gender equality that has been predicted.”
In the Australian outback town of Tennant Creek, Aboriginal women and girls have marched on IWD to call for an end to alchohol-fuelled violence.
Tennant Creek has been in trauma in recent weeks following the alleged sexual assault of a two-year-old girl. Family and community members have accused the Northern Territory government of ignoring their long-running pleas for help combatting high rates of alcohol and drug abuse, and of family and sexual violence.
An artist in residence at London’s Tate gallery has resigned, saying arts institutions are failing women.
Liv Wynter timed her resignation for the eve of International Women’s Day to highlight what she called the “invisible inequalities” of the art world.
Wynter said she was also angered by recent comments from Maria Balshaw, the Tate director, who told the Times she had not personally experienced sexual harassment: Then, I wouldn’t. I was raised to be a confident woman who, when I encountered harassment, would say: ‘Please don’t’ … or something rather more direct.”
Welcome – wherever you are in the world, but particularly to those who’ve already tipped into 8 March – to our live coverage of International Women’s Day 2018.
The mood this year feels different. Real change is underway: women in Saudi Arabia can now drive, or go to sports matches. Milestones have been reached: it’s 100 years since (partial) women’s suffrage in the UK. There are loud conversations around harassment, pay inequality and more. Time’s Up and #MeToohave edged beyond hashtags into palpable anger and hunger for action.
In other ways, though, it feels as if little has changed. A man who bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy” sits in the Oval Office. A prime minister is asked in a TV interview when she conceived her unborn child. Women still routinely face sexual harassment at work. Reported cases of female genital mutilation continue to rise.
> Shiuly Akter