It’s March, and you know what that means: time to celebrate Women’s History Month! Again we find that while this month encourages us to celebrate women’s contributions throughout history, we also want to shine a spotlight on all the women making history in the now. Women across the country are organizing for voting rights, demanding action to protect children in schools, marching for reproductive rights, defending gender affirming care, and so much more.

And this isn’t just nationwide, it's global. A key part of these celebrations every year is today, International Women’s Day (IWD), dedicated to the achievements of all women across the globe and often shaping the discourse for the entire month.

BIG TAKEAWAY: This year it’s all about embracing equity, the key is to remain authentic and avoid falling victim to cringeworthy corporate advertising.

The conversations about Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day are driven by overwhelming levels of positivity (95%). Expressions of love, joy, and trust dominate the discourse, making the month of March a great time to tap into receptive audiences with the correct messaging.

Year after year the messaging is driven by the themes for International Women’s Day. During Women’s History month every year we see a spike in mentions of IWD garnering a 2.5x higher reach than any other topic throughout the month.

Although there are many ways to tap into communities during the month of March, the #WomenEmpowerment and #WomenSupportingWomen hashtags feature strongly in both conversations about IWD and WHM year after year.

We can see these hashtags already staking their claim on this year's discourse, as well.

Unique to this month is the growth of #EmbraceEquity and #IWD2023 leading up to International Women’s Day. These hashtags are driving discourse around understanding the differences between equality and equity and what it means to be truly inclusive.

This year's campaign is encouraging people to “talk about why equal opportunities aren't enough” according to IWD organizers. It’s time to not only recognize that we all come from different backgrounds and intersectionalities but to employ equitable action, too.

This campaign is asking people to not only join the conversation, but to also post images embracing themselves.

The key to joining global campaigns such as these is to be sure we are not simply posting an image, using a hashtag, and counting that as our contribution. We want to be adding to the discourse, handing the mic over to real people spreading authentic messages about what equitable action means to them.

Hershey's Canada has stood out this year when they released their HERforSHE campaign handing over the mic to Trans Activist Fae Johnstone. They not only used their platform to highlight equity for trans women, they also handed the mic over to Fae to speak about what equity means to her. And when they began to see backlash, they did not back down.

Bottom line: Happy International Women’s Day! This year is about ALL women and using our platforms to promote equity for people all across the gender spectrums. With authentic messaging we can show support through personal connections - like AZO.

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