International Women’s day (8 March) is a time to celebrate female empowerment and to look at how far women have come throughout the ages. We all have our own definition of what ‘female empowerment’ means to us and therefore our own way of celebrating International Women’s Day. For me, this is a time to feel really proud to be a woman, knowing there is still more work to be done to come to a place of gender equality but feeling very optimistic about the future.

Women have more freedom and independence in their dating lives than ever before. Gone are the days of a woman waiting for a knight in shining armour to come and find her. The modern woman now has the freedom to go out there and find the person that is right for her, taking her love life out of the hands of fate and into her own hands. She has the power to proactively shape the course of her love life and that is something to celebrate, today and beyond.

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Vicki Pavitt, Match dating expert