International Women's Day: Interflora Creatively Highlights Gender Inequality With New Bouquet

There are many occasions to give the special women in your life a beautiful big bouquet of flowers, from Mother’s Day to International Women’s Day, observed annually around the world on March 8. This International Women’s Day, UK-based flower delivery company Interflora, the world’s largest and most experienced flower delivery network, is choosing to spend IWD by highlighting the need for more progress in gender equality.

As seen in a series of campaign images throughout the UK, accompanied by statistics, they are selling a bouquet of roses with a creative twist. Inspired by Bumble CEO and youngest ever female self-made billionaire, Whitney Wolfe Herd, Interflora launched the bouquet called The Equal Power Flower using rosebuds to highlight statistics such as the fact that only 1 in 20 of the CEOs heading up companies in the FTSE 100 are women. The bouquet features 19 white roses and one solitary red rose to represent the extent of gender inequality within top-level positions.

International Women’s Day is dedicated to acknowledging the contribution women have played in achieving greater equality and recognize the women who have stood against the system, challenged the status quo, and made a difference.

“Our new campaign for International Women’s Day presents striking statistics about gender inequality through the medium of flowers. Flowers are the perfect way to celebrate and show support for the women in your life and this year we’re taking it one step further by also using them to raise awareness of the challenges we still face in dismantling gender inequality,” said Bethany Day from Interflora.

The new launch sits as part of their wider International Women’s Day campaign by visualizing shocking statistics using floral bouquets. The #ChooseToChallenge theme is all about raising awareness of gender bias. Similar to the IWD bouquet, Made up of a mix of white and red roses, they show how women are often overlooked and outnumbered. Here are some more:

Recent research revealed that women would need to work nearly 900 hours extra a year to earn the same as men.

While the health service in the UK (the NHS) is driven by women, they make up only 45% of salaried doctors in England and less than a quarter of senior doctors, meaning they are underrepresented in professional and senior-level roles.

The latest YouGov poll found that only 34% of MP’s in the UK are women. This means that women make up an even smaller percentage of those making decisions that affect all of our lives.

Only 12 out of 195 countries have a woman as the head of their government (6.1%). Although this figure has almost doubled since 2000, clearly there is a lot of room for improvement.

Only 7.4% of the companies on the American Fortune 500 list are run by women, showing there is still a long way to go to achieve equality between the sexes in the corporate world.

You can’t deny that girl power can be felt all over the world, but it is important to remember that we still have a long way to go for greater equality.

Here are some ways that you can celebrate International Women’s Day at home, no matter where you are in the world:

Show your support on social media with an empowering #ChooseToChallenge selfie
Be an advocate for gender equality in your workplace
Educate yourself with feminist literature and movies from writers and directors from around the world
Donate to a woman’s charity
Educate your children on these issues, as they will be the ones shaping the future
Attend an online panel or IWD event
Involve men and non-binary people into the conversation
Don’t forget to say thank you to brilliant women in your life

From challenge comes change, so let’s all #choosetochallenge the status quo in the name of gender equality.