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A letter to my daughter on International Women's Day

Dear Ava,

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day. Since you won’t remember much about it, let me tell you we will celebrate by reflecting on the achievements of great women who have come before us, by pledging to stand up and defend the rights of women and by eating cupcakes for morning tea. Because, you know, cupcakes rock.

And now, since I’m your mother, let me pass on two bits of critical advice about being a woman.

1. Think before perming your hair. I ended up looking like a cross between Jon Bon Jovi and Tootsie.

2. Never date a man who has Cher tunes on his iPod.

So what else do I hope for you?

When you get your first part-time job I hope you’re never told (the way I was) that you are not allowed to wear trousers. (Yes, this did actually happen to me. And it was despite the fact, my job entailed climbing up and down a ladder to retrieve stock.)

Don’t play dumb. Not to make a guy feel better. Not to fit in with your friends. And if in Maths class you know the answer – put your damn hand up.

Love your thighs. Know that your breast size has no  relevance to your  IQ.

Should you choose one day to have a baby yourself, may you never have to hide your pregnancy from your employer while you strategise ways to break the news to your boss.

Be the boss, instead.

Be a good friend and work colleague.  Females at work and at school are their own worst enemies thanks to relational bullying, bitchiness and gossip.  Don’t be one of the mean girls.  You’ll hate yourself for it.

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Learn who Nancy Bird-Walton is. Learn who Quentin Bryce is. Know about Margaret Olley and Dr Fiona Wood and Gabby Hollows and Tara June Winch. Read up on Layne Beachley, Cathy Freeman, Germaine Greer, Nancy Wake, Kay Cottee, Dr Anita Heiss, Miles Franklin, Kate Morton and Magda Szubanski.   Consider the fact that you have been born at a time when both our  Prime Minister and Governor General are women. And yet  there are still too many workplaces in 2012 which don’t offer equal pay for women. Or flexible work hours or family friendly policies or equal representation of women in top management positions. I hope you laugh because in your working years this seems archaic.

Never let any boy or man for any reason tell you you’re stupid or that your thighs are too fat, humiliate you in private or public or make you feel insignificant. ‘Bitch’ is not a term of endearment.

My daughter, I wish for you a world where you don’t have to hold your keys in your hand walking into a car park at night; where you can feel safe going for a run after dark; where you can get in a taxi by yourself without needing your friends to write down the driver’s ID number.

Work hard.  Love wisely.  Live well.   Life’s short, Ava – eat cupcakes when you can. Happy International Women’s Day.

Here is our gallery of some of the women who inspire us…
Mother Teresa - Founded the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta and helped the poor and sick for 45 years.
Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature and is widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century
Julia Gillard - Australia's first female Prime Minister and current leader.
Anna Bligh is the former Premier of Queensland.
Elizabeth the First - The last Queen of the Tudor dynasty, Elizabeth reigned from 1558 until her death in 1603.
Rosa Parks - In December 1, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks, age 42, refused to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. She was later known as the first lady of civil rights and the mother of the freedom movement.
Somaly Mam - a Cambodian author and human rights advocate, focusing primarily on needs of victims of human sex trafficking.
Coco Chanel - A leading French designer who founded fashion brand Chanel. Millions have worn her fragrances and designs.
Princess Diana - She was the People's Princess, charity role model and loved and adored by millions worldwide.
Helen Gurley Brown - Author and businesswoman, Helen was the internaitonal editor of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years.
Agatha Christie - British crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for her 80 detective novels
Aung San Suu Kyi - A force for democracy in Burma, she is an opposition politician who spent 15 of the past 22 years in jail for her activism.
Madonna - She made pop her own brand and has continually reinvented herself and her music, reaching millions.
Estee Lauder - Co-founder with husband Joseph of the cosmetics giant Estee Lauder.
Stella Young - disability activist and ABC's Ramp Up editor.
Florence Broadhurst - Australian designer and businesswoman who joined the Australian Women's Voluntary Services during World War 2. Her 1977 murder remains a mystery.
Oprah WInfrey, televsion personality and former host of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Jackie Onassis Kennedy was the wife of John F. Kennedy later Aristotle Onassis. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and preservation of historic architecture, her style, elegance and grace
Marilyn Monroe was an American model, singer and actress often cited as a pop and cultural icon as well as an eminent American sex symbol
Caitlin Moran, feminist, The Times columnist and author of How to be a Woman.
Professor Fiona Stanley - An Australian epidemiologist noted for her public health work, and her research into child and maternal health, and birth disorders such as cerebral palsy
Amelia Earhart was a noted American aviation pioneer and author and the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross awarded for flying solo across the Atlantic Ocean
Cathy Freeman - gold medallist Olympic sprinter and Indigenous role model. She carried both the Aussie flag and the Aboriginal flag at the Sydney Games.
Penny Wong, Federal Finance Minister.
Anne Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books.
The Governor General Ms Quentin Bryce - The 25th and current Governor-General of Australia (the first woman to hold the position) and former Governor of Queensland
Cleopatra was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt and was immortalised in literature as a great beauty. Her successive conquests of the world's most powerful men are taken to be proof of her aesthetic and sexual appeal.
Margaret Thatcher is a former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who served from 1979 to 1990.
Dr Fiona Wood is WA's only female plastic surgeon. She is world renowned for her patented invention of spray on skin for burns victims.
Nancy Wake was born in Sydney and served as a British agent during WW2. She became a leading figure in the maquis groups of the French Resistance and became one of the Allies' most decorated servicewomen of the war.
Julia Child - American chef Julia Child revolutionized American cuisine through her cookbooks and television programs by presenting an approachable version of sophisticated French cooking to her eager audience for four decades.
Martha Stewart is an American business magnate, media personality, author, and magazine publisher. She is the publisher of Martha Stewart Living magazine, has written several books and has her own talk show, Martha.
Emily Bronte was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her novel Wuthering Heights.
Dr Rachael Dunlop, researcher and vaccine advocate.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter, best known for her self portraits.
Florence Nightingale was an English nurse, writer and statistician. She laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world.
Hillary Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009 and the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Lady Gaga is an American pop singer-songwriter. She has won five Grammy Awards and achieved two Guinness World Records. She has sold approximately twenty-one million albums and fifty-one million singles worldwide.
Jane Austen was an English novelist and continues to be one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her novels are well-known and include Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Sense and Sensibility.
Joan of Arc is a Catholic saint and one of the patron saints of France after leading the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years War.
Margaret Fulton - Is a chef, writer, journalist, author, and commentator. She was one of the first food writers in Australia and has sold over 1.5 million copies of her cookbook, The Margaret Fulton Cookbook, which encouraged Australians to be creative with food.
Marie Antoinette was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre.
Helen Clark - is the second female Prime Minister of New Zealand and the first to have won office at an election.
Indira Gandhi - India's only female prime minister to date.
Michelle Obama - is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States. She a notable advocate for poverty awareness and healthy eating.
Melinda Gates - is an American philanthropist and wife of Bill Gates. She is the co-founder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a former unit manager for several Microsoft products such as Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Encarta, and Expedia.
Naomi Wolf - is a US author and political consultant. With the publication of The Beauty Myth, she became a leading spokesperson of what was later described as the third wave of the feminist movement.
Nancy-Bird Walton -was a pioneering Australian aviator, and was the founder and patron of the Australian Women Pilots' Association
Ellen DeGeneres - American stand-up comedian, television host and actress. Her character in the Ellen show in 1997 also came out to a therapist played by Oprah Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues including the coming out process. She has won twelve Emmys and numerous other awards for her work and charitable efforts.
Jana Wendt - is an Australian Journalist, one of the first reporters on the Australian version of 60 Minutes, as well as filing stories for the American CBS 60 Minutes. She has been host of A Current Affair, also on Nine, a host of Australian Dateline on SBS and Witness on Seven.
Ita Buttrose - is the founding editor of Cleo which was ground-breaking frank about sexuality (and, in its infancy, featured nude male centrefolds), and later as the editor of the more sedate Australian Women's Weekly. She was, and still is, the youngest person to ever be appointed editor of the Weekly, which was then per capita of population, the largest-selling magazine in the world.
Meryl Streep - is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film. Streep has received 16 Academy Award nominations, winning two, and 25 Golden Globe nominations, winning seven, more nominations than any other actor in the history of either award. Her work has also earned her two Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, four New York Film Critics Circle Awards, five Grammy Award nominations, a BAFTA award, an Australian Film Institute Award and a Tony Award nomination.
Tracey Grimshaw - is an Australian journalist and television presenter. She is currently the host of A Current Affair, and was a co-host of Today for nine years.
J. K. Rowling - is a British author best known as the creator of the Harry Potter fantasy series, won multiple awards, sold more than 400 million copies and been the basis for a popular series of films. In October 2010, J. K. Rowling was named 'Most Influential Woman in Britain' by leading magazine editors. She has become a notable philanthropist, supporting such charities as Comic Relief, One Parent Families, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Great Britain, and Lumos.
Lisa Simpson - is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons. She is the middle child of the Simpson family. She has been a vegetarian since season 7, converted to Buddhism in season 13 and advocates for a variety of political causes, including the Tibetan independence movement. Her environmentalism has won her Genesis and Environmental Media Awards, including a special
Oprah Winfrey -is an American television host, actress, producer, and philanthropist, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.[1] She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history.

What message would you like to say to your daughter, niece, cousin or grand daughter on International Women’s Day?

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