Today, March 8 is International Women's Day. It's a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.

This year's theme is #ChoosetoChallenge, which is very fitting. After all, according to the United Nations:

• The gender wage gap is estimated to be 23%. This means that women earn 77% of what men earn, though these figures understate the real extent of gender pay gaps, particularly in developing countries where informal self-employment is prevalent. Women also face the motherhood wage penalty, which increases as the number of children a woman has increases.

• Women tend to spend around 2.5 times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men. The amount of time devoted to unpaid care work is negatively correlated with female labor force participation.

• Globally, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Of 189 economies assessed in 2018, 104 economies still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 economies have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and in 18 economies, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working.

• The labor force participation rate for women aged 25-54 is 63% compared to 94% for men. When including younger (aged 15 years and up) and older women (aged 55 and up), in 2018 women’s global labor force participation rate is event lower at 48.5%, 26.5 percentage points below that of men.


Still, International Women's Day is an opportunity to celebrate women's achievements; raise awareness about women's equality; lobby for accelerated gender parity; and fundraise for female-focused charities.

The household and personal products industry is doing its part by donating money, supporting women's causes and raising awareness. For example:

• Unilever is launching its #Unmute campaign to end domestic violence. “One-third of our adult lives is spent at work,” says Aline Santos, EVP-marketing and chief diversity & inclusion officer. “This puts employers like Unilever in a unique position to create a workplace culture where people know they can access support safely and securely.

• The Estée Lauder Companies calls its founder, Estée Lauder, the original girl boss. To celebrate International Women's Day, ELC is sharing wisdom from the women of The Estée Lauder Companies. 

• During its #WeSeeEqual Summit, Procter & Gamble made several commitments, including: educating more than 30 million adolescent girls on puberty and hygiene across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, through its Always and Whisper 'Keeping Girls in School' program during the next three years; spending $200 million by 2025 deliberately working with women-owned businesses across the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa; and expanding "Share the Care." a parental leave policy in the Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa region. Under its new 'Share the Care' program, all new parents will be entitled to a minimum of 8 weeks' fully paid leave, with an additional 6 weeks' recovery leave for birth mothers. Finally, P&G is committed to achieve a 50-50 gender balance across its management workforce in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa by the end of 2022.