Today is International Women’s Day. I am old enough to remember a time when women were not allowed to join the Navy (I remember a school careers fair in the mid 1980s when we could have the Navy there as women were now allowed to join, but not go on ships). I remember when women’s sport was not televised, or indeed recognised as proper sport in the media. Unless you were a gymnast. Throughout my half century on this planet, I have seen changes in the way women are treated, and I have seen huge breakthroughs.

However, as much as things may change, too many have stayed the same. There is not equality (yet). Just last summer I went to a DIY chain to look at paint. I was told about the colours, my son was told about the durability and how to clean the brushes and more ‘technical’ aspects. He was 17. He only came along for the ride.

Our sons (now adults) stand up for women, they shout down misogyny and they fight for equality. I chose to work part time when our eldest was born, so they could have seen this as the norm, but they don’t. They see a women’s right to choose to be have a career, a family or both. Our youngest has come home this evening saying how a peer wrote a comment about how today was the only woman’s day. Even when things like this are said in jest, it’s a derogatory comment, and adds fuel to the fire.

As readers of the blog may know, I have started a part time doctorate. My elderly grandmother was very pleased when I told her that I had got onto the course, and she then told me that ‘I was so lucky to have a husband who would let me do it’. Thing is, she has a point! I didn’t need permission to do the course and my husband & children encouraged me to apply, but I know there are still some people my age who would not have the support of their partner to pick up the slack when they are studying. An older male relative asked if I would be calling ‘Doctor Salt’ when I graduate – I wonder if he would have asked the same thing to a man?

As I type, my grandmother, in her 90s, is in hospital very ill. Although she has lived a long life, it hasn’t always been happy, and I really wish I could have made it better for her. She wanted to stay on at school and study to work as a speech therapist, but she had to leave to go to secretarial college. She got married very young, and my grandfather was a banker before he became a vicar – and in the late 1940s and early 1950s, banker’s wives didn’t work, so she couldn’t have a career then either. I look at the opportunities I have had compared to hers, and I know how lucky I am. But I also know that there is still work to be done.

Look at clothes for boys and girls, for example, and you still see boys as superheroes and girls as princesses.  It is getting a little better, but it’s not good enough. Think, as well, about the comments that feed toxic masculinity: man up, big boys don’t cry, don’t be a girl etc. They feed the stereotype that men are strong and tough, and women are not as well as putting pressure on men to conform to the societal stereotype as well.

As I reflect on my 51^st International Women’s Day, I can see so many positive changes that have happened in my lifetime. However, I can also see how much still needs to be done, and with groups such as Incels on the rise and the likes of Andrew Tait, as well as what is happening in some states in the US, I can see how easy it would be to slip back.

Even with all the changes that have happened, it still feels like we live in a male dominated world, and so my wish on International Women’s Day, is that in my lifetime, women won’t feel like square pegs living in a round hole society any more.