International Women’s Day is a day of celebration across the world. It’s a day to come together to mark the achievements and successes of women, often in adverse conditions, in all spheres. It’s not just a time for celebration, it’s also a time for reflection, a time to realise that there’s still so much to do in terms of gender equality. It might be 2017, but we face the risk of going backwards if the likes of Nigel Farage and UKIP had their way. We’ve all heard those statements from them calling for paid maternity leave and anti-discrimination laws to be scrapped. Let none of us pretend that there are not existing threats to the hard-fought rights that women have achieved to date.

I don’t want my daughter or her daughters to grow up in a society that treats them worse or pays them less because of their gender. I don’t want her to grow up in a society that could well overlook her for promotion because of her gender. I don’t want her to grow up in a society where she is more likely to be bullied in her workplace or online because of her gender. And I don’t want her to grow up in a society where she is more likely to be the victim of domestic abuse or rape because she will be a woman. Yet, unless we see some drastic change, that is the fate that awaits her and all of the other girls growing up in Wales and, in fact, much of the world. No matter how much we teach them to be confident, or tell them that they can do or be anything that they choose, that is the reality that they face.

In the last century, a strong band of women put their lives on the line, quite literally, to achieve universal suffrage. They were afraid of no-one. They were not prepared to be second-class citizens. A century on, and we are still striving for gender equality and an end to violence against women and misogyny, and we are still striving for many more equality measures. That is why I am proud to call myself a feminist—it’s because I want equality, and it’s why I will join millions of others throughout the world to celebrate International Women’s Day.