#ChooseToChallenge - International Women's Day 2021

Happy March everyone! With Spring and the sun on the horizon, the year is starting to feel a lot less gloomy. To kick off this month, we wanted to celebrate International Women’s Day - a global day celebrating the achievements of all women. As a Games Studio ran by women, which hopes to improve Diversity and Inclusion within our Industry, we thought that today was the perfect opportunity to do our bit and #ChooseToChallenge.

What Is International Women's Day?

Every year on March 8, both individuals and companies come together to celebrate the achievements of women, or champion for women’s equality worldwide. International Women’s Day (IWD) is the most important day of the year to celebrate women’s accomplishments, raise awareness for equality or fundraise for female-focused charities.

IWD has been celebrated and observed since the early 1900s, with the first event being held in 1911 on March 19. In 1913 there was a global agreement that the day would be held on March 8, and in 1914 in London, England, women campaigned for peace and in support for Women’s suffrage. In 1975 the UN officially celebrated IWD and just over 20 years later, they announced the first theme of “Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future”, and since then there has been a yearly theme including: #EachforEqual, #BalanceforBetter, #MakeItHappen and this year’s theme: #ChooseToChallenge.

#ChooseToChallenge

The official description of this year’s theme, #ChooseToChallenge, is:
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A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions - all day, every day.
We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.

This year, Dyak Studios has decided to take part in the global social media campaign, where we will pledge to #ChooseToChallenge inequality. This is one of the main reasons that this studio was started in the first place - to challenge the gender imbalances in the Games Industry and show what a diverse team of people can create. However, we believe that you shouldn't just #ChooseToChallenge in your workplace, but in your everyday life as well!

Dyak Studios pledges to #ChooseToChallenge!

We hope that this post has given you a more insightful view into us a studio, and into International Women's Day in general. If you want to find out more, the official website is linked here. Remember that IWD is just a set date where we all come together to do one thing, but women's achievements should be shouted about all year round!

We'll be back with more game dev-related content soon - a devlog is on the horizon! Be sure to follow us on our socials to be notified when that goes live.