Happy International Women’s Day! The global theme for 2023 is #EmbraceEquity, which is part of an ongoing effort to raise awareness around “Why equal opportunities are no longer enough.” Today is a time to highlight achievements made by women, but also an opportunity to become better informed, and collaborate and brainstorm about the path forward.

“People start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action.” — internationalwomensday.com

Consider taking a few minutes today to learn about pervasive challenges affecting women, including in the workplace. Since unconscious bias is a major driver of hurdles holding women back, it is beneficial for people of all gender identities to educate ourselves about the varied experiences of others.

Here are some resources to get help get you started:

• Recognize the difference between equity and equality and see why striving for equality can interfere with inclusion-related efforts.

• Read highlights from the Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey and LeanIn.Org to examine factors that are holding women back from advancement and in many cases making them decide to leave a company. One notable statistic: “For every 100 men who are promoted from entry-level roles to manager positions, only 87 women are promoted, and only 82 women of color are promoted.”

• Watch a five-minute video of the history of the concept of intersectionality, explained by Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term. Intersectionality refers to the “double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice.”

• Better understand challenges within the tech sector in the report What (and Who) is Holding Women Back in Tech? One finding from this survey, conducted by Girls Who Code and Logitech, is that 90% of women report experiencing microaggressions at work. The report describes key career drivers and the importance of communities of support.

Womenflare is a Cloudflare employee resource group (ERG) for women and people who advocate for women. We are an employee-led group that is here to empower, represent, and support.

At Cloudflare, we are continuing our tradition of building community and celebrating women’s achievements together throughout March. We are also encouraging discussion on equity vs. equality and how we can champion equity for ourselves and those around us with these internal events in the weeks ahead:

• Celebrating with comedy: We are kicking things off with some fun and jokes from Laugh.Events! Offering “Laughter as a Service (LaaS),” they will deliver stand-up comedy, musical comedy, and other comedic activities for a celebratory “Workplace Variety Hour.”

• Equity and allyship chats: After our celebrations, we are opening forums to discuss equity and what this means for each of us in our unique intersectionalities. We have invited some of our fellow employee resource group leads from Asianflare, Nativeflare, and Proudflare to share with us and dive into how we can be both supported and supportive.

• Equity leadership panel: Our internal leadership panels were always well received in previous years, so we decided not to mess with a good thing. This year, we will be inviting another group of inspirational women leaders in Cloudflare to share their experiences with us and explore the areas where we can promote equity in the workplace.

• And more: We have so much more planned for March! From Book Club and meetups to Cloudflare TV episodes and networking events, we are partnering across teams to ensure there are plenty of opportunities to participate and join in on the fun and discussions.

No matter how you plan to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, consider how you can do your part to champion an equitable world. Join the #IWD2023 movement — #EmbraceEquity today (and every day)!

Learn more about how we are cultivating community, including through employee resource groups like Womenflare, via our careers page—and check out our open positions.

To read about our progress on the UN Ten Principles and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), download our latest Impact Report.

“I would venture to guess that Anon,who wrote so many poems without signing them,was often a woman.” - Virginia Woolf

Welcome to International Women’s Day 2022! Here at Cloudflare, we are happy to celebrate it with you! Our celebration is not only this blog post, but many events prepared for the month of March: our way of honoring Women’s History Month by showcasing women’s empowerment. We want to celebrate the achievements, ideas, passion and work that women bring to the world. We want to advocate for equality and to achieve gender parity. And we want to highlight the brilliant work that our women colleagues do every day. Welcome!

This is a time of celebration but also one to reflect on the current state. The global gender gap is not expected to close for another 136 years. This gap has also worsened due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has negatively impacted the lives of women and girls by deepening pre-existing inequalities. Improving this state is a collective effort—we all need to get involved!

First, let’s introduce ourselves. We are Womenflare—Cloudflare’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) for all who identify as and advocate for women. We’re an employee-led group that is here to empower, represent, and support.

Our purpose is not only to celebrate women’s achievements but also to shed a light on inequalities. That is why for International Women’s Day 2022, we’re joining in focusing on the theme of #BreakTheBias throughout our month of events and activities:

Internally, we are kicking off our celebration on March 8. We will be joined by several women from North Coast hip hop improv comedy group. We hope this fun and freestyle event will encourage participants to think about unconscious biases, breaking them down, and how they can get more involved in empowering the women around them.

Following our kick-off celebrations, we’re hosting open discussions about intersectionality and allyship alongside some of our fellow Employee Resource Groups including Afroflare, Asianflare, Flarability, and Nativeflare. It’s important to us to include other ERGs in these conversations since the goal of empowerment, representation, and support is shared among us and can’t be done alone. And we want to play closer attention to the layers that form a person’s social identity, creating compounding experiences of discrimination. “All inequality is not created equal,” says Kimberlé Crenshaw, the law professor who coined “intersectional feminism” term in 1989. Understanding the way different inequalities play a role in a person’s life means understanding the history, systematic discrimination, and the non-uniformity of it.

Last year, we brought together an internal panel of women leaders at Cloudflare to share their journeys and lessons learned. It was extremely well received, so we decided to build upon its success by inviting another group of internal women leaders to discuss their experiences and insights with us. Some important takeaways from these panel discussions have been the realization that most backgrounds and journeys are vastly different, paths to success are often rocky but rewarding, and perseverance, tenacity, and an open mind, often rule the day. What better way to learn from others and encourage more women to lead!

Allyship is integral to systemic change. An ally is someone who recognizes unearned privileges in their lives and takes responsibility to end patterns of injustice. At Cloudflare, we’re working hard to build more diverse and equitable teams, as well as create and maintain an environment that is inclusive and welcoming. There are many actions you can take as an ally; some include:

• Educating yourself: listen to the experiences of your women colleagues and work with them to understand their perspectives.

• Amplifying women’s opinions and advocating for them: speak up for others and champion them when they need support and encouragement.

• Taking action in the workplace: if you see inequality or discrimination happening, reach out to discuss further and understand what can be done.

• Advocating for diversity: talk with your peers and leaders about the ways you can get involved with improving diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s Empowerment Month in your own creative ways! And all throughout the year, remember to empower women and to recognize them in such a way that their work is no longer anonymous. Join the #IWD2022 movement — #BreakTheBias this month and beyond!

Here at Cloudflare, we’re thrilled to celebrate International Women’s Day today! We have tons of events planned throughout the month of March, which is our way of honoring Women’s Empowerment Month. We’ll be making sure we acknowledge women’s achievements, raise awareness about women’s equality, and lobby for accelerated gender parity — Cloudflare style.

We take the International Women’s Day initiatives and its calls to action seriously. Then again, how could we not? The latest 2020 Global Gender Gap Report from the World Economic Forum indicates that it’ll take another 257 years to close the gender gap, if we continue at our current pace of progress. It’s going to take all of us to make a positive impact and accelerate the reality of a gender equal world.

Before we dive further into how we’re planning to celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s Empowerment Month, we’d like to introduce ourselves. We’re Womenflare — Cloudflare’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) for all who identify as and advocate for women (Talea and Angela are the global Womenflare leads and John is the Womenflare executive advocate). We launched Womenflare on International Women’s Day in 2020, and it was one of the last things we did before we closed our offices due to the pandemic. To answer what you may be thinking: yes, it was a very awkward time to introduce a new ERG.

However, while sheltering-in-place we reflected, talked with the women of Cloudflare, and figured out what we wanted to do. And we were still able to partner with other Employee Resource Groups at Cloudflare and focus on discussions of intersectionality and how to be truly inclusive of all those who identify as women. After many thoughtful discussions, we landed on two themes for our overall objectives and guiding principles for everything we do. We want to make sure:

1. Women feel supported at Cloudflare, and

2. Women feel represented at Cloudflare.

These principles are represented in all the various initiatives we produce throughout the year, including projects to ensure women continue to have effective support channels and resources, a strong community at Cloudflare, and the opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions with leadership. International Women’s Day is not only a global celebration for us, it’s the one-year anniversary of Womenflare at Cloudflare. WOW — we have come a long way over the course of one complicated year.

Internally, we’re kicking off the celebrations across our global regions with Kat Hudson, one of the top female magicians in the UK performing close up magic, including on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent!

Following this, we plan to hear from a number of women leaders at Cloudflare during several internal panels and workshops, as well as fireside chats that all, internal and external, can enjoy on Cloudflare TV. We’re excited to speak with many women at Cloudflare that we admire, including our very own co-founder, President & COO, Michelle Zatlyn and our SVP, Chief Product Officer, Jen Taylor.

1. Cloudflare TV: We have many new Cloudflare TV segments scheduled for all to enjoy in March — the #choosetochallenge edition. We’ll be inviting women we respect and admire, both at Cloudflare and from our networks, to chat with us about their journeys and celebrate their accomplishments. Just to name a few segments we’re excited about:

• There will be new episodes of Yes We Can hosted by Cloudflare’s co-founder, President & COO, Michelle Zatlyn. She’s got an amazing lineup including Christina Liu SVP, Chief Accounting Officer at Zendesk and Katherine Regnier, CEO and Founder of Coconut Software.

• Womenflare’s segment Unfiltered will feature new episodes as well. We plan to interview some incredible women. We’ll hear from Louise Story, Chief Product and Technology Officer & Chief News Strategist, WSJ and Alison Taylor, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Jane, as well as many others.

• Keep an eye out for more Women’s Empowerment Month episodes on segments such as Silicon Valley Squares, Founder Focus, Recruiting Corner, and Delivery Management at Cloudflare!

2. Allyship Activities: It’s really important for all of us to promote discussion and foster opportunities around forging a gender equal world. First, we’re hosting our own internal women-focused Ally Skills panel and workshops to teach simple everyday ways to support women.

Second, we’re introducing the Womenflare Challenge. We realize it isn’t always straightforward to navigate allyship without additional guidance and education. To that end, we’ve shared the following:

• Forging a gender equal world is going to take all of us. One way to help is by actively taking ally actions. An ally is a member of a social group that enjoys some privilege and: (1) understands their own privilege and (2) is working to end oppression.

• Examples of acting as an ally to create gender equality for women could include amplifying women's voices, taking part in initiatives or work that strives to achieve gender equality, being an advocate for your women colleagues, speaking up when you witness gender bias, and more! As an ally, you are working to end the oppression of marginalized groups.

• We’ve created the following challenge card to engage our colleagues in allyship and celebrate our women colleagues. We encourage you to take at least one of the actions on the Women's Empowerment Month Challenge Card every week, but remember to be thoughtful with your actions throughout March and beyond! The goal is gender equality.

3. Interactive Activities: In addition to our celebration events, we have a number of fun internal activities planned, like Netflix Parties and a Pub Quiz across our global regions.

4. Hearing Women’s Voices: Lastly, we’re encouraging our women colleagues to present at our weekly All Hands meetings, write for our blog, and contribute their voices — throughout March and beyond.

We hope that you’ll be celebrating International Women’s Day and Women’s Empowerment Month in your own creative ways! Remember to #choosetochallenge this month and join the movement #IWD2021.