Julie Helen: 'The call to accelerate action makes me wake up and think about what's next'

This year’s International Women’s Day centres around the theme calling us to Accelerate Action.

It is a global call for us to band together to work on gender equality.

Focusing on the need to “Accelerate Action” emphasises the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres.

When I see the words written down, they feel like lofty aspirations when we still see too few women in positions of power, either in business or professional spheres, or indeed in government in Ireland.

Our first step in taking any action is to believe that we can succeed and then to take that belief and turn it to action. I feel, having just reached 40 and in a phase of life where I am focusing on my family, I know I am in a sincere place of privilege.

I am in a household where I am valued as an equally contributing member in all that we do, but I’ll be honest, because I am not earnestly and full-time in the workforce at the moment, I have to continually remind myself that my role in our home and the role I play in supporting my husband and son in day to day life, contributes to the overall picture of our life together.

At the crux of the matter, I don’t want other people raising our child, and we can economically make the choice that it can be me. We are lucky we can do that and I take my hat off to working parents. I couldn’t sustain both, I was run into the ground. I took action before everything fell apart in a professional sense and I am proud of that action.

I sometimes worry about how I will feel in 20 years’ time; will I regret stepping out of the workforce? Will I find the path back too hard? Will I lose myself in it all? When I think like that I think of my own Mum, who stepped out when we were children and successfully re-entered the workplace when we were teenagers, long before there were public conversations and supports for that to happen.

The call to accelerate action makes me wake up and be deliberate about what I do in the time that I step back from being an employee full time. I can keep my education and training up, I can keep my connections and stay active in my community. I also feel I have an important role in supporting other women around me. I can support those who are working, I can mind children, offer playdates, even something as small as leaving another driver out at a tricky junction when I am not in as much of a hurry during rush hour as other people might be. Something even that small might make a difference to somebody else.

I believe a way to accelerate my own action is to realise how I can consistently contribute to gender equality. I can build other women up, I can let them know that I can see their efforts, I can promote good service and support by women in business.

I can tell stories; I can use my words to encourage other people to take action in their own lives.

There is nothing huge or drastic about what I can do, but something I say or do might have a positive impact I know nothing about. So I will do little things each day to amplify and accelerate our gender equality action together.