Monday March 8 is International Women’s Day 2021, and sees a week of activities themed around this year’s central #ChooseToChallenge campaign.
The campaign aims to encourage individual commitments to challenge inequality, call out bias and question stereotypes - and most importantly help forge an inclusive world.
International Women's Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity. Significant activity is witnessed worldwide as groups come together to celebrate women's achievements or rally for women's equality.
In what has been a year like no other, The 2021 UN theme for International Women's Day is "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World", highlighting the impact girls and women worldwide have as health care workers, caregivers, innovators and community organisers - during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Within our own industry, it was not so long ago that women’s sport made up only seven per-cent of the total sports coverage (according to the Women In Sport Charity).
Thankfully, that is now changing, with significant sponsorship deals in a number of sports, including football.
Increased televised coverage is helping, too, with BT Sport regularly broadcasting WSL and European games.
In 2019, the Lionesses faced Germany in front of a record-breaking crowd of over 77,000, demonstrating that the appetite for women’s sport is growing rapidly.
Closer to home, Bradford City has made great strides recently, joining the Community Foundation to become Bradford City AFC Women - from the 2021/22 season.
This represents a massive stride for the club, that it is all as one under the Bradford City banner.
While the women’s team remains amateur, it will benefit hugely from the commercial support available, along with the backing of the overall Community Foundation.
One of the key targets for the overall Women and Girls is to introduce more female coaches to the set-up. Currently, there is only one in each of the girls’ and women’s setups.
The Community Foundation will be looking to recruit in time for the 2021/22 pre-season preparations from June onwards.
Women's manager Chris Hames said: "I do not need to stand here and talk on behalf of the brilliant women we have at this club. Their quality and achievement speaks for itself.
"I am honoured to be surrounded by great women - who inspire me every day - at the club, at home and throughout my life. I will be enjoying celebrating them, today."