By Richard McKenzie, Legal Change Manager
For International Women’s Day (IWD), colleagues from across our firm are reflecting on what IWD means to them.Legal Change Manager, Richard McKenzie writes about being a dad to 4 daughters and his hopes for them.
As a father of 4 daughters, International Women’s Day becomes more and more important to me as they grow and become young women. I want to encourage my children to be able to reach for whatever they want to do with their lives, regardless of their gender.
I want to make sure that my kids understand the history of inequality and the incredible efforts of people all over the world to try and help address these issues. More importantly, I want them to take advantage of the hard work and struggles of women like Katherine Johnson, Malala Yousaffzai, and Emily Pankhurst.
My 14-year-old daughter is doing a school project on racism, inequality, and the prison industrial system in the USA. Luckily, she is just like me and loves a good documentary and biographical films. We recently watched ‘13th’, ‘The Kalief Browder Story’ and the next on her list is the incredible movie ‘Hidden Figures’. The performance of Taraji P Henson as Katherine Johnson is worth the watch alone.
The only reason that this is resonating for me, is that almost every topic we teach our children, leads back to some history of inequality.
The future for our children is much brighter and opportunities for them are far richer than those of generations before them. It’s on us to ensure that we close that inequality gap as much as possible.
The only way to do this is to start with educating our children on why we have days like international women’s day. They need to hear from us that they can change the world, and they will.
“A successful woman is one who can build a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at her.” – Unknown