At NDA’s annual Digital Women IWD lunch event, Lydia Oakes, Co-founder of Bluestripe Group, publisher of New Digital Age, opened the day with a powerful call to arms for our sector to continue its efforts to drive inclusivity and diversity across our industry.
“Today, we celebrate International Women’s Day under the theme Accelerate Action.
It is a powerful call, but let’s be honest: in many places, we are not accelerating; we are watching progress stall, or worse, roll backward.
The backlash against equality
Over in the US, we see attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs—efforts that exist because history did not treat us equally.
We see companies quietly dismantling DEI initiatives, calling them unnecessary, as if the barriers women fought to break down never existed in the first place. We know that where the US leads the UK often follows.
We see a worrying narrative emerge, particularly among young men. Research tells us that a significant portion of Gen Z males believe gender equality has gone too far. That somehow, striving for fairness is an overcorrection.
But equality is not a zero-sum game.
Empowering women does not diminish men, it strengthens society.
We will not go back
To those who say we have made enough progress, I ask: Where is the evidence?
Women still earn less for the same work. We are underrepresented in leadership. We are judged more harshly for ambition and held to impossible standards of perfection. And when we speak up, we are told to stop complaining.
Accelerating action, together
So, what does Accelerate Action look like? Companies must move beyond performative allyship. Hiring one woman for optics is not progress. Building workplaces where women thrive, lead, and make decisions, that is progress.
Men must challenge the narrative that equality is a threat. True leadership is recognising that lifting others up strengthens everyone. Women must support each other fiercely. The only way to move forward is together, not through competition but through collective strength.
We need to stand firm against the roll back. Let’s accelerate action.”
