#PaintItPurple – Senedd turns purple to mark International Women’s Day

Published 04/03/2015   |   Last Updated 04/03/2015

​The National Assembly for Wales will mark International Women's Day (8 March) by backing the #PaintItPurple campaign.

The Senedd will be lit in the colour of the international campaign, while the National Assembly's website and social media platforms will also turn purple in support of the international campaign to promote women's equality.

A series of events will also take place on the Assembly's estate to celebrate International Women's Day.

They are all part of the Presiding Officer, Dame Rosemary Butler AM's Women in Public Life campaign, and will include:

  • 11 March – Publication of cross-party Assembly Women in Democracy Caucus' report on ways to address the issue of women's representation in public life in Wales;
  • 12 March – All-male panel discussion about how to involve men in the fight for gender equality. The panel includes Neil Wooding (Chair – Director of Organisational Capability and Performance at the Office of National Statistics) Carl Sargeant AM (Minister for Natural Resources), Roger Lewis (Group Chief Executive of the Welsh Rugby Union) and Chris Green (Founder of the White Ribbon campaign to stop violence against women);
  • 19 March – Pierhead session with Sylvia Ann Hewlett, economist and expert on gender and workplace issues.

"International Women's Day has been observed since the early 1900s, yet here we are in 2015 still campaigning for equality for women," the Presiding Officer said.

"Women make up more than half the population but when we look at the decision-makers and leaders in our society, the majority are still men.

"At the very least we are missing out on utilising some of the best talent around, and at the worst we are continuing to see institutionalised discrimination.

"Women are not a minority group, and as Shami Chakrabarti said at a session in the Pierhead, 'gender inequality is possibly the biggest injustice in the world' because of the very fact that women are not a minority."