08.03.2022 : Celebrating International Women's Day #breakthebias

International Women's Day is a day to highlight the achievements of women all over the world.   Groups around the world use the day to either showcase women or rally for equality.  Today we are celebrating the women in philately.  
We asked philatelists 'What International Women's Day mean to them?'  
​Here are the responses 

Birthe King: Philatelist 
Women’s Day 8 March means different things to women all over the world, and have and will change in the future. But watching and reading the news in March 2022, my thoughts go to the refugees and displaced persons from Ukraine – the women and children. I want to illustrate this with a picture of the original artwork for the Danish stamp ‘Flygtning 71’ (Refugee 1971), issued for the Nordic campaign for refugees, designed by Povl Christensen. I use this in my philatelic exhibit ‘Refugee Camps in Denmark 1945-1949’. So very sad that nothing has changed since the horrors of World War II.

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Constanze Dennis, Managing Director, Grosvenor 
International Women's Day is a reminder of how important it is to take action in philately and fight back in an industry that still has pockets of heavily outdated views. After spending my early years in this industry just being the wife of whichever man was standing closest to me I'm now proud to say that people come to chat to me at the Grosvenor Stampex stand because they know I'm a serious philatelist and not just the Grosvenor window dressing. It hasn't been easy but our company is now a much more diverse team with multiple women working not only in admin but describing stamps too; something I believe is critical to making philately welcoming and appealing to a wider group of people. We may be a small minority now but the secret really is out, philately is a fantastic hobby, so I encourage any woman reading this to come and enjoy some stamps and smash some stereotypes!
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Alison Boyd, Editor, Philatelic Exporter
For me, International Women’s Day is a moment to pause and celebrate the achievements of women all over the world. Most importantly, it also provides the opportunity to see the efforts being made today to create gender equality for all and to think about what still needs to change to achieve this goal.
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Victoria Lajer, Managing Director, Stanley Gibbons 
I feel incredibly proud to be a female leader in a largely male dominated industry.  I hope my time in philately has encouraged other women that they too can part of this wonderful hobby. 
More so now, on the cusp of motherhood, I hope aspiring stampy female leaders will see that women can wear more than one hat. 

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Isobel Klempka, Marketing and PR Consultant, The PTS
Today we celebrate the amazing achievements of women in philately.  It is wonderful to have so many amazing inspirational women in philately and see them flourish.  International Women's Day is also about helping to support and highlight other women in the world those who might be living in fear, suffering from abuse or having to fight to protect their families.   More information on International Women's Day can be found online here.