Editor’s Note I Celebration of IWD: Who Told Us Women Hated Women?

For a long time, I believed a story that now feels both strange and familiar: that women were difficult, competitive, and somehow inherently at odds with each other.

I even played my part in reinforcing it.There was a phase in my life when I distanced myself from women entirely. I prided myself on being “one of the boys,” openly celebrating how easily I got along with men while quietly suggesting that women were too complicated, too dramatic, too much.

It fit neatly into the narrative we have all heard repeated over the years - that women are each other’s greatest enemies.But somewhere along the way, something shifted.I can’t point to a single moment when it happened, but one day I realised that the story I had been repeating didn’t match the reality of my life. Because when I looked closely, women had always been there.

Women were the people I cried to when my heart was broken.

Women were the ones I spoke to about work when things felt impossible. Women were the ones whose success pushed me to raise my own standards. They were also the people I disagreed with, debated with, and sometimes fell out with, but always returned to. Every chapter of my life carries the imprint of women: my mother, my sisters, my friends, colleagues, mentors and even the women I once misunderstood.

So I began asking myself a simple but uncomfortable question: Who told us women hated women? And why did we believe it so easily?

Conflict is part of human relationships. Women argue. Women disagree. Women fall out. But so does every other group of people on earth. Yet somehow, when women clash, it becomes proof of a larger narrative - one that quietly erases the countless ways women support, nurture and champion each other every single day.

The truth is that women have never been my greatest enemies.

More often than not, they have been my greatest allies. And perhaps that’s why gratitude matters. Because in acknowledging the women who have held us up, quietly, consistently, sometimes invisibly, we begin to change the narrative.

Women have never been the enemy.

Maybe it’s simply time we started saying thank you.

I hope you'd join me, my panelists and other women on Saturday 14th March 2026 as we share stories of how women have come through for us. 

Scan QR Code or click link ( https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/blanck-conversations-presents-international-womens-month-give-to-gain-tickets-1984417236373?aff=oddtdtcreator ) to register - Limited Spaces Available.