Once the posts fade and the hashtags disappear, what do women actually need from the world — and from each other?
Every year this day arrives.
International Women’s Day fills our feeds with powerful quotes, celebratory campaigns, and declarations of solidarity. For years I consumed these posts the way most of us do, scrolling past them between meetings, school pickups, dinner plans, and the thousand quiet responsibilities that fill a day.
This year felt different. This year I wasn’t only consuming those messages; we were also sending them out into the world. Through UNRUSHD we shared a simple idea that quietly rejects one of the oldest narratives in beauty: the idea that women are a “before” waiting for an “after.”
Our message was simple.
· You are not a before.
· You are not an after.
· You are already whole.
Some people saw it. Some people resonated. Many probably never saw it at all.
And that’s okay.
Because like every year, this day will pass. The posts will fade, the hashtags will quieten, and the world will move forward again. But before we do that, I want to pause, to reflect just quietly
· If we step away from slogans for a moment and look honestly at the world women are living in today, the questions become simpler.
· What do women actually need?
· What do we deserve?
· And what can we do — practically — to support each other?
When you strip away everything else, the answers become surprisingly clear.
1. The first thing women deserve is safety
This should not be a radical statement. And yet it still is. Globally, nearly one in three women — around 30% — will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to data from the World Health Organization. Behind this statistic are everyday realities that many women quietly navigate:
Walking faster at night. Sharing locations with friends. Adjusting routes home. Holding keys between fingers. Safety should not be something women negotiate with the world. It should be the baseline. Yet this idea of safety sounds so unrealistic, unattainable. WHY??
To feel safe in schools, on university campuses, in workplaces, in homes, on streets — this is not an aspiration. It is a basic human expectation.
2. The second thing women deserve is equality
We speak about equality often. But the numbers still tell a different story. Women continue to earn less than men in many parts of the world, and disparities widen over time as careers progress. In entrepreneurship, the imbalance is even more striking.
Female founders receive around 2% of venture capital funding globally, despite the growing number of women building businesses and innovations across industries.
In the UK specifically, female-led teams received just 2.1% of total venture capital investment in recent years. This is not about capability. Women are founding companies. Leading teams. Building products. Creating new ideas. But access to capital, opportunity, and visibility still remains uneven.
Equality is not simply about pay. It is about possibility. Equal opportunities to lead. Equal chances to build. Equal investment in women’s ideas. Equal space to succeed without apology.
3. The third thing women deserve is support
Not symbolic support. Practical support. Supporting women can be surprisingly simple:
Buy from women-owned businesses when you can. If you cannot buy, talk about their work. Recommend their products. Share their stories. Feel the pride
Entrepreneurship often looks glamorous from the outside. In reality it is built quietly — through persistence, community, and encouragement. Sometimes a single introduction, recommendation, or moment of recognition can change the trajectory of someone’s journey. If you are successful woman or man find other women to mentor freely. When one woman succeeds, the door rarely closes behind her. She takes many with her
4. The fourth thing women deserve is permission to move differently
Much of the modern narrative around success has been built around one model:
· Move faster.
· Hustle harder.
· Sleep less.
· But not everyone thrives inside that rhythm.
· Many women are building lives that are layered — careers, families, caregiving, creativity, ambition, growth.
Success does not have to always look like exhaustion. It can look like nourishment too.
In many ways, UNRUSHD was born from that exact realisation.
That slowing down, even briefly, can bring more clarity than rushing endlessly forward. The modern narrative asking women to do all, be all, can be toned down to be a bit softer, by letting them do whatever they want to that helps them keep their minds bodies and souls nourished
5. Next thing women deserve is kindness
The expectations placed on women today are vast.
· To work.
· To care.
· To build.
· To appear effortless while doing it all.
In the middle of this, self-kindness often disappears first. International Women’s Day reminds us to celebrate women. But perhaps the deeper invitation is simpler. To extend the same generosity we offer others towards ourselves.
To pause. To breathe. To recognise that being enough does not require transformation. It requires recognition. A quiet reflection
The world will not transform overnight because of one day. But change rarely begins with grand gestures. It begins with small shifts. Choosing fairness over convenience. Supporting another woman’s work. Questioning systems that no longer make sense. Allowing ourselves to move through the world with more care. If even a few of us pause to reflect on these things today, then the day has served its purpose.
Love
Dee
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