The fight for women’s rights goes on

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/06/fight-womens-rights-goes-on

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Sunday is International Women’s Day, 60 days before the British general election and 18 elections since the suffragettes won women the equal right to vote. Yet in the 2010 election, more than 9 million women did not make their mark in the ballot box, perhaps partly because men outnumber women four to one in Westminster.

The UK is ranked 57th in the world for the number of women in national parliaments. Without equal representation, policies are skewed by the interests of those who govern and we end up with a government of the few, by the few, for the few.

More than a few of us will march along London’s South Bank this Sunday to continue the campaign for equal rights that Emmeline Pankhurst started four generations ago. Hundreds of passionate feminists, female and male, are walking to rally against the daily violence, discrimination and drudgery women across the world continue to face.

Beyond the march, anyone can pledge to walk 10,000 steps a day for one week in solidarity with women and girls in some developing countries who are weighed down by the 20kg loads they must carry for miles every day to collect water. Care International’s Walk In Her Shoes continues in the suffragettes’ footsteps, firm in the belief that social action can create real political change.

Political activism, social media outcry and boots on the ground are needed to accelerate change. Progress on women’s representation in parliament is stalling and the burden of poverty falls on women and girls – they make up 60% of the world’s poorest billion people. We need power to make practical change and new realistic opportunities – from digging boreholes to banging our drums for a political voice. Deeds, not words, are needed now more than ever.Dr Helen Pankhurst and Laura PankhurstCare International UK

• So half the world’s women work (Gender pay gap ‘will not close for another 70 years’, 6 March). Is the Guardian suggesting that half the world’s women don’t do any work?Jenny LeishmanBedford