Every year on 8th March, the world comes together to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. This important day is aimed at striving for a more equitable world by honouring the achievements of women and supporting female-focused organisations. This year’s International Women’s Day theme is #Choose to Challenge and is all about choosing to call out gender bias and inequality. By choosing to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements, we can collectively create an inclusive world.
Whilst there is still lots to be done towards equality, this year has been a great year for women, with many becoming more powerful than ever. Kamala Harris made history as the first woman and first Black and South Asian woman to be vice president. Queen Elizabeth II is the longest-reigning monarch of the UK. Greta Thunberg is the youngest activist to make a worldwide movement for climate change and Whitney Wolfe Herd is the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. We are seeing so many incredible women making history every single day, and whilst a lot has been achieved, the journey is long and much more needs to be done. That is why it is important to keep celebrating women every day, not just once a year.
Here at The Room, diversity and inclusion is an important part of our culture and for International Women’s Day, we stand united and are committed to challenging gender inequality, questioning stereotypes and helping forge a more inclusive world. So this year, we wanted to take a moment to spotlight some of the inspiring women on our platform and celebrate their incredible journey and achievements.
Whilst there are many inspiring women to choose from, we have decided to celebrate three women, who in their own right have used their social platforms to educate, share their knowledge and experiences to help and inspire others.
Let’s take a look.
Rebekah Wilkinson (@thebaglifeofbeck)
Rebekah is a self-love advocate who was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis over 10 years ago. Having had surgery for her stoma bag, she decided to share her story on the Crohns and Colitis UK charity page. As a result, her post went viral and she received an overwhelming amount of people reaching out to say how much sharing her story had helped them.
After seeing all the incredible responses, she decided to set up her Instagram in the hope of helping others who were going through a similar situation. Her inspiring page not only sees her sharing her own personal journey and the challenges she has faced but also how she champions the movement towards normalising bodies. She is an inspiration to so many and we are incredibly proud to have her as a member of The Room.
Perri Edwards (@itspsd)
Perri Edwards is a former Olympic Athlete whose path has changed since hanging up her spikes. She is now on the journey of motherhood with her baby boy, Matthew. From a life on the tracks, Perri now shares with her followers the role of becoming a mother. Across her social channels, she portrays a positive and uplifting approach by helping other mothers who look to her for advice and support.
After a major injury in 2017 which was threatening to her carrier, Perri made an incredible comeback through sheer determination and strength. However, last year she made the decision to end her professional career to focus on a new path. Whilst this is not an easy decision for an athlete to make, Perri now shows how life can continue and flourish after retirement. After dedicating her life to the sport and having a multiple medal-winning career, she now shares with her following that her new greatest achievement is becoming a mother, and how her knowledge and skills in fitness can help through motherhood.
Lauren Black (@imlaurenblack)
Lauren Black is a fashion, beauty and lifestyle creator. She has created a strong following across her social media platforms as well as becoming the author of her self-titled fashion blog. She uses her platform to share with her diverse audience her fashion and beauty expertise.
Lauren is a well-rounded individual who explores a wide range of topics and creates a space for her followers to learn and gain inspiration from. In the last year, Lauren opened up to her followers about having struggled with an eating disorder for many years. She has since then decided to use the platform to raise awareness and inspire others to know that recovery is possible for everyone.
With 125 million people in the UK suffering from this mental illness, Lauren wanted to use her Instagram to encourage the conversation and drive for a more body-positive culture. In order to help her followers, especially her younger audience, she vocally expresses the importance of self-love and acceptance and is actively helping the movement to stop the filter effect. Lauren understands how detrimental the unrealistic beauty standards of today can be on young women’s mental health, so she is committed to raising awareness of this illness by championing inner beauty. Her bravery to speak out and discuss such a private topic has helped so many people suffering from an eating disorder by letting them know they are not alone. We love seeing the amazing responses she gets and we are proud to have her as a member of The Room.
As well as celebrating these three inspiring women, we want to give a big shout out to all the incredible women on our platform, as well as all the women who work extremely hard on a daily basis here at The Room.
If you want to show your support and solidarity, then strike the ‘Choose To Challenge’ pose and share on social media using #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021 to encourage further people to commit to helping forge an inclusive world. For more information on this, check out the IWD website.
We provide room for the many incredible women like these on our platform with an opportunity to use their voice by working with the brands they love and creating authentic stories to inspire others. Fancy some extra room to inspire others?
