International Women's Day Events 2025

UCL EGA Institute for Women’s Health are delighted to host a selection of free events to celebrate International Women's Day 2025. For full details of each event, please see further information below and book via the Eventbrite links

The IWD 2025 campaign theme is #Accelerate Action: a worldwide call to acknowledge strategies, resources, and activity that positively impact women's advancement, and to support and elevate their implementation. Significant barriers to gender equality remain, yet with the right action and support, positive progress can be made for women everywhere.

These events are free and open to all

If you are interested in joining one of our postgraduate programmes to learn more about Women’s Health, please click the link below for more information

Postgraduate Taught Programmes

International Women's Day 2025 Panel Discussion: Beyond the Bleed

Many people receive only one or two lessons about periods in school, and if you’re male, you may not have had any at all. Without proper education, how can we distinguish between a normal and abnormal period? The lack of awareness can have serious consequences, affecting women’s quality of life and delaying the diagnosis of conditions like endometriosis. At this exclusive event to celebrate International Women's Day, this panel discussion chaired by Chloe Stevens will explore what constitutes a normal period, the signs of abnormal menstruation, and conditions such as heavy bleeding and endometriosis. Joining the discussion are Professor Ertan Saridogan, Professor Joyce Harper and Dr. Jessica Farren, as well as representatives from Wellbeing of Women, who are leading the “Just a Period” campaign to improve menstrual health education.

Image of Professor Joyce Harper and Dr Lucy van de Wiel performing Why Didn't Anyone Tell Me This

International Women's Day 2025 Performance: Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me This?

In this exclusive performance to celebrate International Women's Day, Professor Joyce Harper (Professor of Reproductive Science, EGA IfWH/UCL) and Dr Lucy van de Wiel, (Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine, Kings College London) will present a tour of human reproduction. This show was performed to a full house at Paradiso in Amsterdam in July 2024. Professor Harper and Dr van de Wiel will discuss reproductive anatomy, the menstrual cycle, fertility, infertility, egg freezing and menopause. It is a celebration of our (non) reproductive bodies and how we navigate the new reproductive options that are made available to us.

Image of Inheritance Art Exhibition for International Women's Day 2025 - updated timings

International Women's Day 2025 Art Exhibition and Q&A: Inheritance

UCLH Arts & Heritage presents Inheritance: An Exhibition by Jill Mueller and Paloma Tendero. London-based artists Jill Mueller and Paloma Tendero respond to their experiences with inherited genetic mutations: a breast cancer gene mutation (BRCA1) and polycystic kidney disease (PKD). Their artworks touch on ideas related to family, biological inheritance and emotional transformation; the dualities between health and illness; connections between the body and natural world; and the complex decisions we face around preventive health care. Following on from last year’s talk about their practices for International Women’s Day, please join Jill and Paloma at the Street Gallery for a Q&A session as they share their creative approaches and the ideas connected to artworks they created in response to their medical experiences.

International Women's Day 2025 Lecture: Women in Early Modern Medicine [Online]

Despite being formally excluded from the medical profession until the end of the nineteenth century, early modern women carried out a range medical work including midwifery and dispensing remedies to the sick.  This online Lunchtime Lecture with Penny James, introduces new findings from a survey of more than 7000 medical texts from the Royal College of Physicians Library published before 1714 to reveal women’s use of medical texts – as readers, authors, and publishers – throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century. This presentation is one part of an effort to reintroduce these women to the historical record.

International Women's Day 2025 Talk: Be Prepared for Menopause

A team at UCL run by Professor Joyce Harper and Dr Shema Tariq are developing the UK Menopause Education and Support Programme – called InTune. This programme is being co-designed with the public and will involve two parts: Be Prepared for Menopause for everyone to learn the basics about menopause, and the Perimenopause Programme for those going through perimenopause to gain education and support. At this exclusive event to celebrate International Women's Day, Shema and Joyce will present Be Prepared for Menopause: an interactive session made up of 18 short videos by UK experts in menopause covering what is menopause, the symptoms, diagnosis, lifestyle, management and life post menopause.

International Women's Day 2025 Panel Discussion: Women's Birth Choices - Who Decides?

This panel discussion in honour of International Women's Day 2025 with Arezou Rezvani (Consultant Midwife at UCLH), Komal Khuti-Dulaart (Chair of Maternity and Neonatal Voice Partnership at UCLH), and Zeynep Gurtin (Lecturer at UCL EGA Institute for Women's Health) will explore the complex interplay between medical necessity, women’s autonomy, and systemic constraints, asking the critical question: When it comes to birth choices, who really decides? 

Image of Professor Bola Grace and information about her Inaugural Lecture as part of UCL EGA Institute for Women's Health International Women's Day events 2025

Inaugural Lecture: Women’s Health in 4D Data, Devices, Diagnostics, and Diversity

Please join us at Professor Bola Grace's Inaugural Lecture for her appointment of Honorary Professor of Practice at University College London, EGA Institute for Women's Health entitled 'Women’s Health in 4D: Data, Devices, Diagnostics, and Diversity. Crosspollinating ideas across industry and academia'. Professor Grace's Inaugural Lecture also forms part of our exclusive International Women's Day 2025 events.