We need to talk about International Women's Day. Yes, I know that at the time of writing this, it's still months away. But I'm seeing lots of companies making decisions about it ahead of Christmas, so I want to share this now, before it's too late.

First, I need to start with a rant.

The 2026 International Women's Day Theme Is NOT:

"Give To Gain"

That's the alliterative, vaguely-meaningless word salad theme chosen by the self-apointed marketing agency whose sole 'right' to pronounce the International Women's Day themes is them owning the  .com domain. They have no authority to set the theme, and the IWD theme is actually decided by the United Nations. Their global theme won't be published until early 2026.

The marketing agency , whose IWD website fails to provide transparency over who they are, or where the sponsorship and fees paid by companies go, say the theme for 2026 is about 'forging gender equality through abundant giving' - by women, to women - and cultivating 'a mindset of generosity and collaboration'.

But if you pause for a moment between taking cringe-worthy selfies with the embarrassing, prescriptive, marketing-agency-dictated pose, if your organisation runs with this theme in 2026, it's not going to land well and could seriously backfire.

The purple cupcakes being thrown at the walls is likely to be the least of your problems.

How will the women in your teams feel about being told by their employer that they have to give even more, to 'gain' what should already be theirs by law?

It risks creating a toxic narrative where women feel they are being told that the reason why they don't yet have equality and equity is because they haven't given enough. But women are already doing a disproportionate amount of the 'giving', both within your organisation, and in their home lives.

And 'giving to gain' is not about the alleged 'generosity' that the theme claims to inspire; it's giving with an agenda. That's not going to sit well with most of your team members.

It plays into the 'fawn' element of the fight-flight-freeze-fawn response that so many women are running, especially if they're experiencing chronic stress or burnout, or have been a victim of trauma: fawning (aka people-pleasing) is all about subconscious self-protection through over-giving, in order to feel safe and get what you need or deserve.

If you promote this catchphrase for your IWD2026 events, it's not a neutral or positive message. You're risking a gender-regressive, psychologically harmful, victim-blaming message that's incompatible with the 2010 Equality Act distorting your positive intentions.

Equality is an employer's legal obligation, not something that should ever be dependent on women's behaviour or generosity of spirit. And since women tend to over-give more than their male colleagues already, promoting this concept risks reinforcing gender stereotypes.

So my strong suggestion is to wait until the United Nations publishes the official International Women's Day 2026 theme, and work with that.

Next: We Need To Talk About How IWD Events Aren't Moving The Needle

The Fawcett Society monitors the UK's gender pay gap and they found that progress went backwards in 2024. The gap grew.

And we've seen a trend this year of companies making policy decisions that are going to make things even worse, with return-to-office mandates being shown to hit women harder than men, and mental load and burnout at an all-time high.

So for 2026, please be intentional about International Women's Day. Don't just rinse-and-repeat what you did last year.

And then we come onto the crux of things. You want to celebrate the women in your teams. You want to inspire and support them. But:

I encourage you to be intentional around what you choose to do for your teams for International Women's Day in 2026.

Plan events that will make a measurable difference. Do things that matter. By all means make it fun, but make it have impact, too.

How can you do this?

I can help with all of this. Get in touch here.