Southampton celebrates International Women’s Day

On International Women’s Day (IWD) today, the city is coming together to put Southampton’s incredible women on the map.

Southampton’s UK City of Culture bid 2025 is supporting the IWD’s 2022 campaign theme of ‘Breaking the Bias’, asking the city to share how their organisation is challenging both conscious and unconscious bias that still prevents barriers to social inclusion today.

Southampton 2025, in partnership with the John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, recently launched an inclusion initiative involving organisations from across Southampton making meaningful pledges to ensure change and to make the city more inclusive. You can watch the inclusion pledge videos on the Southampton 2025 website.

Individuals, partners and organisations are being urged to share films, blogs and articles this International Women’s Day using the hashtags #IWD2022 #BreaktheBias and #MakeitSO.

As part of their work to support the city-wide celebration, the Southampton 2025 team have collated a list of the various events taking place. This list includes an Inspirational Women Artists Exhibition and Silent Auction at God’s House Tower, an event celebrating women working in the beer and wine industries at Olaf’s Turn, a Women’s Wellbeing event at Central Library, and a Southampton International Women's Day Online Event. 

Claire Whitaker OBE, Southampton 2025 UK City of Culture Bid Director, said: “Our recent pledge aims to ensure that diversity, equality, and inclusion is embedded into all that we do, enabling equal opportunities for all.

“We are great supporters of this year’s IWD campaign to break the bias.”

Claire Whitaker, Trustees (including Laura Read, General Manager at Westquay) and bid partners (including Veronica Gordon, Our Version Media) will be speaking at several events across the city.

Claire added: “Let’s use our collective voice and share the fantastic achievements of women across Southampton to the world.”

International Women’s Day is an annual event and is commemorated in a variety of ways worldwide.

To be part of Southampton’s IWD you can follow Southampton2025 on socials platforms #MakeItSO or to see how you can support the IWD 2022 campaign, visit: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/theme.