Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels.  ~Faith Whittlesey

As part of the work to promote my 360 Wisdom: Empowering Women workshop series, I’ve been researching women’s groups and associations near to and in the cities where I’m performing. Because my work in the past has tended to be with organisations, one of the big challenges is to reach individual women who may get some benefit/enjoy the 360 WISDOM programme.

I’ve noticed there are a plethora of groups out there; a lot of them are to do with women in Business. They appear to be run like franchises where you pay an annual fee plus extra for lunches and talks and meet like-minded women to network and maybe do a bit of business together.   There’s so many similar set-ups, it’s difficult to pick a front runner.

I joined one (free ) group who are based in Birmingham (Women in Business Association) that has interesting talks and events (which I hope to attend one soon) . Kirsty who runs it seems to be brimming with ideas and enthusiasm.

I also went to a charity dinner for the Women’s Networking Hub (run by a female dynamo Shahida Choudhry). I met some really interesting women from all different backgrounds. Some worked at grass-roots in the community helping people get work, supporting their educational and/housing needs. Another gave advice on debt management , someone else worked in a college and others ran their own businesses.

Everyone was friendly, nobody judged and the one thing we all had in common was just enjoying being with other women for their company and to support various charities as well as join other women from across the UK on the Million Women Rise march on 3rd March in London which is to highlight/raise awareness about violence against women.. I believe similar marches are being held in other countries e.g. Egypt.

It got me thinking. When I was growing up in the 1970’s and 80’s, for a time, women were afraid to go onto the streets at night. The Yorkshire Ripper had been murdering women almost with impunity and it made us fearful about our own safety.

I can remember going on a ‘Reclaim the Night’ March in Leamington Spa with a load of angry women who wanted to feel safe and for violence against women to be taken seriously. A lot of events took place like this with a lot of support form women in the NHS and the public sector.

With the years passing, my ‘political’ view has become dulled as other things have taken priority. I felt proud (and a little ashamed) that a new generation of women are standing up for their rights. A little bit of sadness was there too that 25 years on, there are still a lot of issues around how women are portrayed in the media (this is being considered now in the Leveson Inquiry) as well as how women are faring in relation to equal pay,   representation at senior levels in business and public life and issues around domestic violence. Has much changed over the years? The answer has to be ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It’s made me realise that we all need to keep up the pressure to maintain and improve human rights that took a long time to achieve.

My Empowering Women workshops go a little way towards doing this as does the support of the Soroptomists  in what I’m doing (they are a global network of  professional and business women who are committed to working with women and girls to achieve their potential, realise their aspirations and inspire action to create opportunities to help women transform themselves. ) I’m working in partnership with the UK Soroptomists to help promote the group and to raise funds for charities at home and abroad.

After my weekend of being subsumed in women’s issues from the past to the present, I could see how everything has connected up to help women. What can you do or are you doing to help?