What Most People Get Wrong About International Women’s Day
A closer look at the truths, misconceptions, and what genuine commemoration actually looks like, including what it means for the world of work.
Every March 8, our social media feeds turn into a sea of purple. Corporations change their logos, brands launch “girl power” clothing lines, and “Happy International Women’s Day” becomes a standard greeting. It feels celebratory. It feels like we are winning.
But at Peleza, our work is centered on trust, verification, and data, not optics. And when we look at the hard data surrounding International Women’s Day (IWD) in 2026, the optics do not match the reality.
We are missing the point of the day.
While it is tempting to use IWD to celebrate how far we’ve come, the truth is that the day was designed not as a celebration, but as a mechanism for protest and systemic change. By treating it as a symbolic holiday, we obscure the massive legal and structural gaps that still exist in our workplaces and societies.
Here is the key information most people miss when commemorating this day, and what genuine progress actually requires.
What Is International Women’s Day, Really?
International Women’s Day is celebrated globally on March 8th. But most people don’t know where it actually came from.
Its roots are not in appreciation campaigns or gifting culture. IWD grew out of the early 20th-century labour movement women garment workers in the United States and Europe who went on strike demanding fair wages, safer conditions, and basic dignity in the workplace. It was later recognized by the United Nations in 1977, and it has since grown into a globally observed occasion that is a public holiday in dozens of countries across Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Each year, the IWD campaign sets an official theme that shapes the global agenda. In 2026, the theme is Give To Gain rooted in the idea of reciprocity: when individuals, organizations and communities give through donations, mentoring, advocacy, education, time, or resources, everyone gains. It is a call to make March 8th one of the biggest annual giving days for gender equality, and a reminder that investing in women is not a cost, it is a multiplier.
“IWD was never meant to be a celebration of how far we’ve come. It was meant to be a reckoning with how far we still have to go.”
The Things Most People Miss
1. It Has Radical Roots That Are Often Sanitized Away
IWD did not begin as a feel-good event. It emerged from socialist and workers’ rights movements, women demanding to be treated fairly, not celebrated. When we reduce it to appreciation posts and floral arrangements, we strip it of the very urgency that gave it meaning.
Honoring IWD well means asking: what are the structural barriers women face today, and what are we actually doing about them?
2. Progress Is Real — But It Is Not Nearly Enough
Yes, women have made extraordinary strides. More women are in leadership, in education, and in entrepreneurship than at any point in history. But the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index consistently shows that at current rates of change, full global gender parity is still generations away, particularly in economic participation, political representation, and access to healthcare.
The narrative that “we’ve basically got there” is one of the most damaging misconceptions around IWD. It creates complacency precisely when sustained effort is most needed.
3. IWD Is Not Anti-Men
One of the most persistent misunderstandings about International Women’s Day is that it is a day of opposition. It is not. It is a call for equity, a world that works better for everyone. Men are not excluded from IWD; they are invited to reflect, advocate, and take concrete steps alongside women.
Organizations that observe IWD well engage their entire workforce — men included — in conversations about what gender equity looks like in their specific context.
4. Corporate Campaigns Are Not The Same As Commitment
Many companies “purple-wash” IWD, launching beautiful campaigns on March 8th while maintaining persistent gender pay gaps, a dearth of women in senior leadership, and inadequate parental leave policies for the other 364 days of the year.
Visible celebration is not evidence of genuine commitment. The question every organization should ask itself is: what does our data actually say about how women experience this workplace?
5. One Day Is Not Enough — And Was Never Meant To Be
Perhaps most importantly: IWD is a focal point in a 365-day commitment, not a checkbox moment. The most powerful commemorations are those that spark conversations, policy reviews, and personal commitments that extend well beyond March 8th.
What This Means in the World of Work
The workplace is one of the most important arenas where gender equity is either advanced or undermined. And this is where Peleza’s work becomes deeply relevant.
Peleza exists to verify that people are who they say they are, through background checks, identity verification, KYC, and employment screening across Africa. But at a deeper level, what we do is help create workplaces built on accurate information, not assumptions.
When hiring decisions are grounded in verified facts rather than unexamined biases, everyone benefits. And women, who disproportionately face assumptions about their qualifications, career gaps, and credentials, benefit enormously from a world where the truth is the only currency.
“Fair hiring starts with verified information. When the data speaks for itself, bias has less room to operate.”
The Hidden Cost of Unverified Hiring
Across Africa, credential fraud is a real and pervasive challenge. Falsified degrees, fabricated employment histories, and inflated qualifications distort the hiring landscape, and those with genuine, verifiable credentials lose out. Women who have worked hard to earn their qualifications deserve a hiring process that validates that effort, not one where fraudulent competitors can level the playing field by lying.
Background screening is not just a compliance exercise. It is, at its core, a fairness mechanism.
Women-Led Businesses Need Verified Partners Too
IWD also invites us to think about women as business owners and entrepreneurs, not just employees. Women-led businesses in Kenya and across Africa are growing, and they face a unique challenge: building trust with partners, vendors, and clients in markets where due diligence is still catching up.
Peleza’s KYB (Know Your Business) and KYC solutions help level this playing field, making it easier for businesses of all sizes, including women-owned enterprises, to verify who they are working with and to demonstrate their own legitimacy in return.
A Note on Peleza’s Own Story
Peleza was founded by a Kenyan woman –Marita Mutemi– who identified a gap in the African market and built the continent’s first automated KYC/KYB, background screening company from the ground up. That origin story shapes how we think about the intersection of data, trust, and opportunity.
We know what it means to build something in a space where credibility has to be earned, where excellence has to speak louder than assumptions, and where verification of identity, of credentials, of integrity matters enormously.
That is why International Women’s Day resonates with us beyond the symbolic. It speaks directly to the kind of world we are helping to build: one where your record speaks for itself, and where the truth is accessible to everyone.
How to Actually Honor IWD
If you want to move beyond the hashtag, here are some meaningful steps for individuals and organizations alike:
- Learn the history. Understand that IWD grew from a labour rights movement, not a gifting occasion.
- Engage with the 2026 IWD theme: Give To Gain. Ask yourself; what can you give (time, mentorship, resources, advocacy) so that women, your organization, and society all gain?
- Audit your own organization. What does your gender pay data say? How many women are in senior leadership? What does your parental leave policy look like?
- Include men. Gender equity is not a women’s issue, it is a human issue.
- Make commitments that outlast March 8th. One conversation, one policy review, one hiring process improvement can matter far more than a dozen social media posts.
- Support women-led businesses. Not just on IWD, as a consistent practice.
- Verify, don’t assume. Whether hiring or partnering, let the evidence speak.
Final Thought
International Women’s Day at its best is not a celebration of the status quo. It is a challenge to it.
It asks us as individuals, as organizations, as a society to look honestly at the gap between where we are and where we say we want to be. And then to do something about it.
At Peleza, that is work we take seriously every day. Because a world where credentials are verified, identities are trusted, and decisions are made on the basis of facts rather than assumptions, is a more equal world. And a more equal world is better for everyone.
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