By Louise Timlin
On Tuesday March 7, Wokingham Town Hall was packed to the rafters with close to a hundred people ready to celebrate International Women’s Day 2023.
I organised the event to highlight the ongoing gender inequalities that women still face in 2023, but also to celebrate incredible local women who are using their own talents and experiences to change things for the better.
We heard from three women working in our community, but there are so many more, who, inspired by their own experiences and the challenges others face, choose to use their energy and talents to make a difference.
We heard from Sarah Hacker at Alana House about the outreach work they do to help vulnerable women avoid offending behaviour that could lead to a prison sentence.
Kushinga Hare talked about her own experiences of being a refugee in this country after her mother died at age 12, and how she now works for the Refugee Support Group Berkshire to help individuals and families rebuild their lives after escaping from war, torture and/or modern slavery.
Marie Hemingway used her own drive and expertise to co-found the award-winning Speak Out Revolution, which gathers data on the harassment and bullying women experience at work, and leverages this data to lobby for change.
Fiona Dignan, whose work you may have read in this paper, performed a bespoke poem she wrote for the evening which left us all fired up and in no doubt about our collective power as women.
During my three years leading the Reading and Wokingham branch of the Women’s Equality Party, I’ve spoken to so many local women doing such great work in our community, striving to make things better. Many of them have experienced discrimination, abuse or hardship themselves. All of them have a passion to help.
I couldn’t begin to list them all here but in our community there are domestic abuse survivors now working to support other survivors; women running food banks and lunch clubs; women running and working for charities that support victims of abuse and families going through tough times; women who have founded support groups and a county-wide Facebook group shining a light on the ongoing racial discrimination that black and minority ethnic people face daily; women who organise events and marches, and who never fail to use their voices for the benefit of others.
Gloria Steinem said: “The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist, nor to any one organisation, but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights”.
I’m a member of the Women’s Equality Party because I believe in the strength of women working together to change things for the better. The passion and power of all the incredible women I’ve met in our community strengthens that belief.
International Women’s Day was one day on which we got to celebrate them, but they deserve much more. When we put aside our differences and work together, we can achieve so much. The UN estimates it will be 300 years before we achieve global gender equality. That’s because they haven’t met the phenomenal women of Wokingham.
I will continue to champion issues that impact local women and I’d love to hear from you.
You can contact me on readingandwokingham@womensequality.org.uk
Louise Timlin is the leader of the Reading and Wokingham Branch of the Women’s Equality Party
