Women's Day is a day to commemorate the cultural, political, and socio-economic achievements of women. Though gender equality has come a long way, there are still great lengths to go.

There are many obstacles and barriers that women still have to face in order to succeed and to be looked at as an equal each day, according to BC Liberal MLA for Kelowna-Mission Renee Merrifield.

On Monday Merrifield spoke in the Legislature about the need to push for greater steps towards gender equality, especially under the circumstances of COVID-19.

She explains that in this unfortunate pandemic, women are doing more housework and child raising while still trying to provide for their families and losing their jobs at higher rates than their male counterparts.

Merrifield also highlighted a disappointing encounter she had with a male owner of her company,

“He looked at me and declared I would never be as good as of a business person as he was, while I thought it was because of a lack of knowledge or education and wanting to better myself or at least be self aware, I asked why, he looked at me, shrugged, and said, because you're a woman.”

She goes on to explain the difficulties she and many other women have to deal with in order to be noticed and to prove themselves and because of this Merrifield is trying to make a change.

Throughout her career she made sure women had fair hours, time off, fair hiring practice and equal pay for equal work.

In a post on Facebook Merrifield writes “Today on International Women's Day, let's #choosetochallenge gender bias and inequality.

Photo: Contributed