International Womens Day

G'day and welcome to Blog #22. Today is International Women's Day. Who knew huh? Well, nearly 300 women at the breakfast I attended sure did. My friend Peta (aren't we gorgeous? And modest. That's us, left, at the breakfast this morning) invited me to join her table, a perfect vantage point from which to view the room full of women of all ages, sizes and shapes. And with a wide variety of attitudes about and aptitudes for style, if what was visible to the naked eye and the casual observer was anything to go by.

Duly Different? You know, I find this positively fascinating. There's lots of talk about how different the sexes are. The guest speaker at this breakfast herself talked about how different men and women are, especially when it comes to connection and conversation. The meandering path that women often take when they talk together, vs. the bullet-point approach to discussion and debate that men often take. Whilst these broad brush strokes have a ring of truth to them (and garnered lots of laughs during the talk this morning, largely due to the performance skills of the speaker), they don't tell the whole picture.

Take this morning. Even though this was a business women's event, the interpretation of what is appropriate for a business breakfast were as wide as the grand canyon. Everything from wafty skirts with flat, Roman style sandals and spaghetti strap tops, through to fitted dresses teamed with killer heels. And everything in between. There were navy blue suits, a-line dresses, wraps over crinkled skirts, satin shirts with pencil skirts, bare arms, long-sleeve wrap tops, full length skirts, shorts, tailored pants, jeans. Even a school uniform. No board shorts or bikinis, but most other modes of dress appeared to be represented. You can't get much more 'different' than that, right?

A basis point or two. A woman from one of Australia's "Big 4" banks was there in her uniform - a snazzy combination of a black pencil skirt with a satin-esque (shiny) black short-sleeve shirt - who knew NAB was going sexy? Maybe its their way of keeping the customers focused on something other than their rising mortgages repayments? Clevah.

Don't pin me! We were all given purple ribbons (with the "office of women" printed on them) to commemorate the occasion. My major concern was that it didn't match what I was wearing and the safety pin would damage my silk shirt. Peta, a veteran of International Women's Day, had prepared her outfit so that the purple ribbon coordinated with what she was wearing. Now that's what I call planning ahead! Right?