Statement on the 2024 International Women’s Day

March 7, 2024

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day (IWD) is Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress with a message that “gender equality is one of the most effective ways to build healthier, more prosperous, and more inclusive communities.”

IWD invites us to celebrate the progress made on gender equity and inclusion, but also to acknowledge the ever-present local and global forces acting against these goals. Today, let’s take time to recognize and appreciate the presence and accomplishments of cis and trans women – across ethnoracial identity, ability, and sexual orientation – who, in the face of persistent challenges, inspire us to sustain and build on efforts we have made towards achieving ever-more expansive gender-based equity and inclusion.

While Canada ranks relatively high on the global gender gap index, ranking 30th, the Canadian Women’s Foundation statistics on rates of sexual harassment and assault, gender-based and intimate partner violence, femicide, unemployment among women, women living in poverty, gendered impacts of social determinants of health, and underrepresentation of women in leadership reveal there is still much work to be done to inspire gender inclusion across the nation. This is particularly true for Black women who are “woefully underrepresented in leadership positions in North American businesses” and on corporate boards across eight Canadian cities (0.8 per cent are occupied by Black women directors).

At UBC, our recent employment equity survey data demonstrates increasing gaps in representation of women among senior-most leadership, among increasingly higher faculty ranks, and among professional and managerial staff. Conversely, women students are in the majority across all of UBC’s program types (from undergraduate to doctoral levels) – an important consideration as we strive to build a complement of faculty and staff that is proportionally reflective of our student body. Globally, women tend to slightly outnumber men as tertiary education students, yet in 2021 only 20 per cent of leaders of top 200 universities were women; in Canada, this number was 31 per cent.

Women continue to experience double standards with respect to explicit and implicit societal and workplace expectations. For example, studies on gender bias and perceptions of women leaders demonstrate that women who are considered “agreeable” will be supported as leaders, however, qualities associated with successful leaders generally are qualities that are not palatable when women display them! There are many other double standards that women must contend with.

All women are expected to be…

  • Intelligent but not too clever…
  • Assertive but not too bold…
  • Decisive but not too strong-minded…
  • Nurturing but not too emotional…
  • Elegant but not too attractive…

Racialized women are expected to be…

  • Interested but not too ambitious…
  • Vocal but not too loud…
  • Confident but not too powerful…

All of these expectations, of course, are based on perceptions and projections shaped by a culture that both obscurely and obviously reinforces sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia.

To address these gaps and persistent biases – and action commitments to gender equity – the university continues to invest in various initiatives such as: enhanced assessment of employment equity, inclusive hiring education and initiatives to improve representation, recognition efforts, awards and scholarships, building communities for women, academic and research endeavours, and various programs aimed at increasing inclusion of women in STEM (UBC Science, Computer Science @ UBC Okanagan, and UBC Engineering). Many of these efforts also align with UBC’s involvement in supporting progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), including SDG 5: Gender Equality.

On this International Women’s Day, we should celebrate and recommit our efforts to advance gender equity and inclusion not only as matter of individual educational and employment rights but also as a matter of institutional vitality and viability. As agents of change, universities are well positioned to explore and demonstrate promising practices and serve as beacons for change in the wider world.

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