OK, so bear with me on this one....

The old saying doesn't immediately sound like one which fits with International Women's Day (IWD). I was thinking about the idioms and sayings sometimes used for women. I expect 'girls rule the world' is going to come up a lot today! But 'men are from Mars and women are from Venus' is one an older relative of mine uses (when she and her husband are talking at cross purposes!). However, it's also a good way of explaining gender equity, which is the theme of IWD this year.

If women all live on Venus and men all live on Mars, and you ask them to travel to Earth to arrive at say midday because Venus is further away, they'll need to start their journey earlier in order to arrive on time. Enabling women to have an earlier start to their journey is equity. Giving men and women the same duration to make that journey would be equality. Equity is about appreciating everyone is different, people come from different starting points and so to achieve true inclusion and belonging, we need equitable action.  

To be clear – IWD belongs to everyone. As it says on the IWD website, it’s a day to celebrate women's achievements, raise awareness about discrimination and take action to drive gender parity. To my mind, International Women's Day has gender parity at the core. The way I see it, it’s not about pitching one gender against the other or special treatment.  

Today we’re having a remote coffee and tea morning to talk about equity and, perhaps most importantly, ask people what they think would improve equity in the workplace. It’s not for me to tell people how to be equitable or nurture equity in the workplace. 

We’ve come up with lots of ideas and projects, but all the best ideas in the world aren’t enough if people don’t have the opportunity to suggest their own ideas. With the best will in the world, my ideas to foster equity will be limited by my own experiences and my starting point. To be equitable we need ideas from people who come from a wide range of different starting points. Listening is key and today’s the perfect day to start that conversation. We’ll have to see what comes out at the coffee morning today!

In the meantime, here’s a flavour of just some of the ways we support women (and men) in the workplace: 

• hybrid working with flexibility around core hours and flex to do the school run; 
• a menopause support group, awareness sessions and policy; 
• mentoring scheme and coaching offering; 
• the introduction of a legal director role as an alternative to partnership; 
• membership of the Women in Business Association; 
• signatory to the Women In Law Pledge; and 
• an employee assistance programme.

So today, take the opportunity to start the conversation about equity with your colleagues. What’s their starting point, do they think the workplace is an equitable one and what could be done differently? 

Ps. For those of you who want to fact-check the analogy (I'm sure there are a few of you!) the NASA website advises: the minimum distance from Earth to Mars is about 33.9 million miles; and at its nearest to Earth, Venus is some 38 million miles distant.