Nicola Alpe: Why celebrating International Women's Day is more important than ever

Monday March 8 is a day to celebrate the women in our lives and all their diverse roles. Photo / Getty Images

OPINION:

Monday March 8 is International Women's Day. I needn't give you a lesson about women in history, how they have helped shape the world we live in and continue to do so.

Furthermore, I don't need to remind you of the New Zealand women who have shaped our country and the world since way back. We are seeing some of them on the TV and in the media daily, in prominent and respected roles traditionally held by men. That alone is impressive and encouraging.

I'd like to draw attention to how amazing regular New Zealand women are. This country has been created by many women who have split their cuticles and tied their hair back in scarves to get the job done, many of our mothers and grandmothers included.

Listening to National Radio, results from a study showed that while men were working more and doing more unpaid work around the house since lockdowns started, women were working more and doing even more unpaid work around the house. This is hardly surprising. Work-life balance has well and truly blurred.

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Traditional roles, which despite us trying to be all modern and progressive, some of us find ourselves defaulting into, mean that since early last year women have borne the brunt of Covid-19. "Women's work", to use that awful and outdated term, was traditionally all those daily tasks that simply have to be done.

Globally this past year, women have lost more jobs than men. Women have quit their jobs or scaled back their hours to sit alongside children and supervise, or in some cases take over, their education.

Working women have been at the kitchen table alongside children and teenagers, vying for bandwidth and space while some men have retreated to work in relative calm. These situations have not escaped many women in this country too.

On Monday I will be thinking of the women of New Zealand past and present, who work, raise children (sometimes on their own), run a house, deal with the minutiae of everyday life and find time and the energy to blow out their hair, pull together food for a special dinner or bake a birthday cake, plus be themselves, a wife, a friend, a colleague, and more.

New Zealand women are capable, creative, gritty and impressive. May we raise more women like this and may we celebrate them.