International Women’s Day (IWD) has always asked us to pause. In 2026, it asks us to act.

In 2026, UN Women has named this year’s IWD theme as “Balance the Scales”, a powerful reminder that while progress has been made, true gender equity demands sustained effort, collective responsibility, and meaningful partnerships.

To balance the scales is to ensure women have access to safety, opportunity, financial independence, education and dignity. It is about removing the quiet barriers that stop women from participating fully in their own lives. And it is about backing the women already doing that work on the ground.

International Women's Day 2026

REBECCA UDOWIKA

06 Mar 2026

Balance the Scales

Celebrating International Women’s Day

Balance the Scales

Celebrating International Women’s Day

This International Women’s Day, we look beyond awareness and towards the women actively shifting the balance.

International Women’s Day (IWD) has always asked us to pause. In 2026, it asks us to act.

In 2026, UN Women has named this year’s IWD theme as “Balance the Scales”, a powerful reminder that while progress has been made, true gender equity demands sustained effort, collective responsibility, and meaningful partnerships.

To balance the scales is to ensure women have access to safety, opportunity, financial independence, education and dignity. It is about removing the quiet barriers that stop women from participating fully in their own lives. And it is about backing the women already doing that work on the ground.

This International Women’s Day, we celebrate two extraordinary women and the organisations they lead, actively shifting the balance toward equity, empowerment, and independence. For some, it begins in a wardrobe. For others, in a school bathroom. For all, it begins with the belief that imbalance is not inevitable.

Over the years, FRANKIE4 has supported both organisations in a variety of ways, aligned by a shared belief that when women are equipped with the right tools and resources, confidence follows. This campaign is a continuation of that commitment.

Rochelle Courtenay | Founder of Share The Dignity

Tamara Smith | CEO of Suited to Success

For Tamara Smith, CEO of Suited to Success in Queensland, imbalance became visible through overrepresentation. “We noticed things really weren't evenly balanced in the space we work in because of the overrepresentation of women in our clientele,” she says.

Suited to Success exists in the space between capability and opportunity. “The goal at Suited to Success is to be there for people and to provide them with everything they need for their new start.” Sometimes that start begins with something tangible: a jacket for an interview, help reframing a resume, the confidence to re-enter the workforce after time away.

When she heard this year’s theme, it resonated immediately. “When we hear ‘Balance the Scales,’ it means so much in the context of our work because we are all about equity and addressing gaps.” Those gaps, she explains, might be “a gap in a women's wardrobe” or “a gap in her resume because she wasn't able to work for a while due to circumstances far beyond her control.”

Economic independence is powerful. But Smith is clear that safety underpins everything. “I think one of the biggest gaps for women in terms of a balance and balancing the scales today is their safety. I think if women feel safe, it can be quite transformational for their futures.”

Balance, in her words, is simple: “nothing standing in a woman's way, nothing being a barrier to her participating and being a part of her community.”

Rochelle Courtenay, Founder of Share the Dignity, is tackling a different kind of barrier. In 2015, she read that 48,000+ women experiencing homelessness did not have access to period products. “That’s really where Share the Dignity started,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that there wasn’t a person in Australia that didn’t know this problem existed, because we’re all part of the solution to fix that.”

Period poverty is often invisible until you look directly at it. “Without access to period products, girls are missing out on school, they're missing out on sport, and I bet you they're missing out on being able to go to work,” Courtenay says. “These basic, essential items play a pivotal role in balancing the scales.”

For her, balance is about both access and education. “‘Balance the Scales’ for us at Share the Dignity means ensuring that people have access to period products, that they have access to education,” she explains, and “without having access to period products, we’re not balancing the scales.”

The stakes are not theoretical. Courtenay recalls meeting “a young girl sitting in a domestic violence shelter, who told me about how she would steal socks from the laundromat at the age of 14.” It is a story that reframes dignity as infrastructure, not luxury.

If the scales were truly even, she says, “access to period products would be everywhere. Not having access to period products would not stop you from doing anything.”

Across both leaders’ work runs a shared conviction: change is collective. Smith believes “we can all be a part of creating that balance,” even when the challenges are complex. Courtenay agrees that “we all play a pivotal role in balancing the scales.”

For Hilary McMillan, Group CEO of FRANKIE4, that collective effort extends into leadership and culture. “Because when women are supported, I think that everything shifts from workplaces to home life to the world in general,” she says. Support is not passive. “It’s important that we’re continuously lifting women up.”

International Women’s Day, she reflects, is a reminder that “women really shape the world.” With three young children, including a daughter and two sons, she sees clearly what is at stake: “the world we’re building is for them.”

Her message this year is concise and urgent: “Back women, back each other, and be each other’s biggest cheerleaders.”

Balancing the scales is not a one-day act. It is practical, it is persistent and it looks like all areas across a women’s life including safety, employment and having access to essential items. It looks like removing friction so women no longer have to overcompensate simply to participate.

The scales do not correct themselves. But, as Courtenay says, “we are starting to move that dial.”

And that movement, steady, collective, intentional; is where real balance begins.

Learn more about Suited to Success here.

Learn more about Dress for Success here.

Find out more about Share the Dignity here.