Already 2015 is turning out to be quite the year here at Grazia. This month, we celebrated our 10th birthday with a phenomenal exhibition at the Getty Gallery, held our own Ten Talks with incredible women from all over the world - and this week, we found out we’d helped change the law.
Yes - we won! Our nine-month Mind The Pay Gap campaign - which saw us stand shoulder to shoulder with the remarkable women who marched in Dagenham in 1968 to fight for the Equal Pay Act 1970 in December, and watch in the House of Commons as Sarah Champion MP presented our bill to a landslide victory - came to a victorious conclusion, the day before International Women’s Day. And it’s down to you, our brilliant readers.
Your tenacity in tackling your MPs, fervently signing our petitions and sharing your stories has meant that the government has agreed to make existing pay transparency legislation - Section 78 of the Equality Act 2010 – compulsory in the next 12 months.
That change in the law will mean 10 million women employed by companies of 250 staff or more all over the country will have access to vital information about their own pay gap. Data which has historically hidden discrimination from public scrutiny can now be used as a weapon for those who are underpaid because of their gender to take action - and will put pressure on companies themselves to assess how fairly they pay men and women respectively.
It’s a victory for every woman in the UK - and a huge victory for Grazia readers. You showed that, if you shout loud enough, you can be heard. Thank you.