Year of the woman!

How fitting that we should launch this blog to inspire women in the year that marks 100 years of the suffragettes winning the right for women to vote.

I personally think it’s no coincidence, and believe it is significant for all of you reading the blog and all of us who write on the blog.

I’m so proud to be a woman, I believe in all that we women stand for, whatever our roles in life, personally and professionally.  I love men too (because actually there may well be some men following us too! Hello, if you are 😊).   I think they (well some of them😜) have a significant strength and role to play in our society and world.  I have some truly amazing, strong, loving, wise and ultimately good men in my life who have encouraged and supported me to become the woman I am today (shout out to my daddy and husband!).  

However we women have been second rate citizens (in the eyes of the world) for far too long and its not ok. I love the stand for gender equality that is happening right now.  Why should men get paid more than we do? Why the hell should a man be more likely to get a senior position because he is not likely to take a year out to have a baby (and only give birth to the next generation 😏).  

New Zealand’s current prime minister is pregnant, again I think no coincidence given the times we are in and I love that! It is time that the world started to understand and appreciate the beauty and power of the woman…that like Beyonce said “we’re smart enough to make these millions, strong enough to bear the children, then get back to business”😏.  We can be strong, powerful, influential and (if we choose to) have children too.  If anything having children gives us a different perspective and authority in life.  I think I’ve been better and better at my job each time I come back from maternity leave.  Because put simply, having children empowered me as an individual, gave me more of a sense of my authority, made me focused and helped me understand the meaning of priorities and realise I had no time for nonsense or  time wasters.

Are you as excited as I am about this year being the year of the woman?  That we are being celebrated and that what those women did for us all those years ago is acknowledged and honoured?

I'm loving this suffragette inspired collection by a designer called Bora Aksu...I want one of those hats with the ribbon that goes under the chin! Also, the victorian inspired dresses...gorge!

Bora Aksu's suffragette Princess Sophia Duleep Singh inspired AW17 collection 

Let's celebrate our womanhood and all that it encompasses.  We refuse to apologise for who we are but to let the world know who we are and that we are not the inferior sex.  Yeah, stand up and say it with pride and strength...I AM WOMAN! ✊....cue Beyonce's "who run the world" song 😂