Equality begins earlier than we think

Each year on 8 March the world marks International Women’s Day.  We celebrate women’s achievements, share statistics about leadership and reflect on how far things have come. But in the places where I spend much of my working life, the conversation about equality looks very different.

Courtrooms. Women’s prisons. Low decile primary schools. Seen side by side, these places tell a more complicated story about how inequality develops and why it proves so difficult to shift.

The story begins early.

Long before equality is debated in workplaces, it is being shaped in homes, classrooms and communities.

If we are serious about equality for women, we have to be serious about the conditions in which girls grow up. Because by the time inequality becomes visible in boardrooms, it has usually been forming for years.

In New Zealand those conditions remain confronting. Around one in three women will experience sexual violence during their lifetime. Nearly one in four will experience physical or sexual violence from a partner. For many girls, harm begins well before adulthood, with significant numbers experiencing sexual abuse during childhood.

These experiences rarely occur in isolation. Violence, poverty, unstable housing and disrupted schooling often travel together. Increasingly we are also seeing large numbers of girls and young women struggling with anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges during adolescence. The pressures of social media, family instability and economic strain are landing heavily on a generation still trying to find its footing.

When these pressures converge, they can shape how children move through education and opportunity. Some young people growing up in difficult circumstances find school harder to navigate and disengage earlier than they otherwise might have.

Literacy is one of the clearest indicators of this challenge. Around seventy percent of people in New Zealand prisons have significant literacy difficulties. In youth justice residences, average reading levels sit far below what we would expect for a child’s age.

These statistics do not define anyone’s future. Many children facing hardship go on to flourish. But they do highlight where early support can make an enormous difference.

By the time the justice system becomes involved in someone’s life, much of their story has already unfolded. And very often that story began years earlier in places like classrooms.

Which is why International Women’s Day should not only celebrate women’s achievements. It should also sharpen our focus on reciprocity.

This year’s theme recognises a simple truth. When we invest in women and girls, society gains in return.

That idea is often framed in economic language. Workforce participation. Leadership pipelines. Productivity. Those things matter. But reciprocity is far more practical than that.

Across New Zealand there is a quiet economy of people investing in one another. Teachers who refuse to give up on a struggling reader. Volunteers who stay after school helping children make sense of the words on a page. Grandmothers stepping in when families fracture. Women supporting other women through moments of crisis.

These acts rarely attract headlines. Yet they form the scaffolding that holds communities together.

Some of the most determined efforts I have seen come from women whose lives have already been shaped by hardship. Inside prison, mothers record storybooks so their children can hear their voices at bedtime. They write letters about school reports and birthdays. They try, sometimes imperfectly but often with remarkable determination, to remain present in their children’s lives and interrupt cycles that might otherwise repeat.

Outside prison gates the same principle appears in classrooms and community halls. Homework clubs where children read aloud after the school bell rings. Volunteers giving time, patience and encouragement that can shift a child’s confidence in ways that last for years.

Reciprocity is not charity. It is investment.

When a child learns to read confidently, the return flows outward for decades. When communities invest early in young people, the benefits appear later in stronger families, safer neighbourhoods and young people who believe they have options.

At home these questions are not abstract. I am raising five children, two sons and three daughters. Conversations about fairness and opportunity happen around our table often. We talk about girls growing up with confidence and ambition. We also talk about boys growing up with a clear understanding that equality requires their participation too.

The future for women will not be shaped only by the girls we raise. It will also be shaped by the boys growing up alongside them. If we want a society where women thrive, we have to raise sons who understand that strength includes respect, empathy and responsibility.

International Women’s Day is often framed as a celebration of progress. It can be that. But it should also be a moment of clarity. For equality does not begin in boardrooms or conference rooms. It begins in childhood.

If we want women to thrive, we cannot ignore the realities many girls are navigating long before adulthood. Safety, stability, literacy and wellbeing are not side issues in the equality conversation. They are its foundation.

So perhaps the most useful question for 8 March is not simply how far women have come. It is whether we are prepared to invest far more deliberately in the girls growing up today.