Women's History Month 2026

Women's History Month takes place in March every year with International Women's Day on 8 March. Our theme this year is "Women Leading Change."

Women’s History Month (WHM) is an opportunity for women to come together to celebrate women’s history. We reflect on the inspiring women that have made and continue to make positive contributions to our union and our communities across the world. While acknowledging our achievements, we continue to fight for gender equality in all areas of life.

The theme chosen by the PCS national women’s forum (NWF) this year is “Women Leading Change”. NWF reps are reflecting on women’s stories, past and present, where despite the challenges, discrimination and barriers they have faced, they fought through and led change.

Sunday 8 March is International Women’s Day (IWD) and the NWF felt the theme of “Women Leading Change” should also be the focus for this important day. PCS membership is over 50% female, but we need more women members to get involved and hold activist roles.

We also need more women members to join the national and regional equality networks to keep up to date on women’s issues affecting them.

Women’s voices

We have a series of inspirational and empowering blogs to celebrate Women’s History Month, which will be published throughout March.

  • Fran Heathcote, PCS general secretary, leads the celebrations for IWD. Her blog focuses on how she became involved in the union and how we can support and encourage each other to speak up.

  • Mariann Raheem, British Library rep, writes about her involvement in the recent industrial dispute and encourages other women to get involved in the union.

  • Liz McGachey, NWF rep talks about the inspiring Scottish TUC women’s committee weekend school which supports women activists to write motions and speak at conferences.

  • Alida Ballard, NWF rep discusses the ways in which women can get involved and how if you’ve ever said, “someone needs to fix this”, you can be that someone.

Materials

You can download posters for WHM and IWD, photo op cards and online backgrounds from PCS Digital.

Online event

On Tuesday 24 March from 12.30 – 1.30pm there will be an event on the theme “Women Leading Change” hosted by Ginnette Gantschuk, NEC member.

Speakers are Jackie Green, NWF chair and national vice president and Angela Grant, NEC member and DWP president. All women members are invited to join the event. Register online.

For any queries about the event, WHM or the equality networks, please email [email protected]