Hysteria, Logically

What is International Women’s Day really about? It’s not an unheard-of question. In fact, it is one I have found myself debating on many occasions.

About a week ago, I took to the internet in hopes of finding an answer. What I thought would be an easy task quickly turned far more complicated, prompting me to reflect on how this event is represented today.

When you search International Women’s Day on Google, the first thing you will find is ‘Give to Gain’. A phrase that many will have seen scattered across office walls and social media. It is not until you scroll down further that you find UN Women Australia’s official theme – ‘Balance the Scales’.

So why the two different themes?  To put it bluntly, one caters to the needs of women, and the other one just caters to the higher-ups.

‘Balance the Scales’ is the official theme put out by UN Women Australia for IWD 2026. It was chosen to reflect the findings and values of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. ‘Give to Gain’, on the other hand, is a little more trivial. It was put forward as the theme by the organisation running the site ‘internationalwomensday.com’ and has no relation to the United Nations.

The site has been around for over twenty years, in that time gaining a significant amount of notoriety, with many workplaces and events adopting their slogans and purchasing their marketing materials. While the UN’s themes address specific and actionable areas of gender disparity, the focus of ‘internationalwomensday.com’ tends to lean heavily on corporate buzzwords and catchy alliteration over real substance. They cater to a commercial environment by using softer, more vague language. By choosing to replace the UN’s theme with a catchier option, we are essentially choosing to silence the huge number of women who have helped to decide on the theme, and instead promote a theme which, let’s face it, was probably generated by AI or brainstormed by someone in the marketing department.

The whole concept of a theme for this event is to encourage education, conversation and awareness for key issues women are facing. Instead, we’re left thinking, “well obviously I want to ‘accelerate action’ and ‘inspire inclusion’. Tick box, what’s next on the agenda??” The whole day loses its meaning, just to make it suitable for an office environment.

The adoption of these themes reflects a broader pattern of tokenism that has been applied to the day itself. It feels as if workplaces today, in an effort to ‘show their support’, have defaulted to perfunctory gestures, rather than addressing real issues in the workplace. While I am always in favour of representation and recognition, I (and I’m sure many other women too) would take closing the gender pay gap and improving systems to support women going on maternity leave, over cake in the break room and a slot in the staff newsletter. Now, obviously, these actions are at a completely different scale, but it is impossible to achieve real change if we are too busy patting ourselves on the back over the ‘smaller stuff’.

Even ignoring the debate over the motives of either organisation, it is also worth noting that ‘Give to Gain’ is kind of a terrible theme. For years, women in both the workforce and at home have been expected to ‘give’ more than their male counterparts, in order to ‘gain’ the same level of recognition. While I’m sure it was not their intention, at the surface level, this theme perpetuates the idea that equality is something that women are expected to work for.

UN Women Australia’s theme does its job much better. This year’s theme, ‘Balance the Scales’, intends to highlight the importance of equity over equality and recognise the difference in circumstances that exists between women. Just as it is impossible to balance a set of unequal scales by applying the same weight on either side, it is impossible to address gender inequality through blanket actions. Not only are different groups of women disproportionally affected by various issues, but how they respond to support can be completely different. Likewise, we cannot simply ‘fix’ gender inequality by treating men and women exactly the same.

This year’s theme emphasises the importance of educated action, and an understanding of and respect for others’ perspectives. We need to remember not to be blinded by our own hardships, privileges and experiences, but instead choose to listen to others and amplify their voices.

This year, we are reminded to fight for equity and to be conscious of the world around us. This takes time, work and genuine conversations. Real change isn’t just something you can slot into a lunch break.