The ABC will feature an all-female cast on Wednesday. And yes, we need it.

Tomorrow is International Women’s Day.

It’s a celebration that dates back 108 years, with March 8 hosting a century of brave and powerful protests for gender equality. In 1914, Sylvia Pankhurst and her Suffragettes marched in London, and in 1975 the women of Iceland – 90% of them, in fact – downed tools to protest their rights as women.

It is not a day for moderation or mild manners. International Women’s Day is our day to stand up and be heard.

This year, the ABC has announced it will only feature female hosts on both its radio and television networks.

Wednesday March 8 will see the extraordinary lineup of Wendy Harmer, Kumi Taguchi, Jen Flemming, Chris Bath, Emma Crowe, Jane Caro, Sarah Macdonald and Lisa Pellegrino take over the ABC programs.

“The 2017 theme for International Women’s Day is #BeBoldForChange,” the ABC website explains.

“Here at the ABC we’ll be focusing on equality and highlighting the extraordinary breadth of talent of our women broadcasters, journalists, content makers, and behind the scenes staff.”

To many, it seemed like a fitting tribute to women on, well, you know, International Women’s Day.

And yet, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, a handful of individuals this morning have jutted out their chins and announced that they are not satisfied.

“Patronising ABC boots male presenters off air,” wrote Sharri Markson for the Daily Telegraph.

"This is nothing more than a token gesture by the ultimate organisation of tokenism, the ABC,” said Sky News host Peta Credlin.

“Is this the ABC's dumbest effort yet?” asked the Daily Mail. “Broadcaster kicks ALL male presenters off air for International Women's Day.”

It’s hardly a stretch to imagine the conversations around the office water cooler this morning.

Some would ask how ‘kicking men off’ the television and radio helps promote equality. Others will argue the ABC should commit to all-female panels more than once a year.

Listen: Meet Helen, a kick arse woman doing kick arse things. (Post continues after audio.)

But most would just put it down to a ‘gimmick’, a ploy for publicity, a stunt. Smug nods and dramatic sighs as they trot off to their desks for the day. Feminism, eh? What a misguided trope.

Here’s what I think.

I think that the ABC could create a giant vagina piñata filled with pink glitter and hang it in Federation Square for all I care. They could cancel all programs, and just play Run The World (Girls) on repeat.

Heck, they could shower the streets with tampons like a ticker-tape parade as Katy Perry parachuted in from a hot pink blimp and I would still support them.

Why? Because International Women’s Day is all about creating a conversation. It’s about ruffling feathers, making people uncomfortable, and bringing the dirty word of feminism out into the bright lights of the public forum.

International Women’s Day is a reminder to everyone, men and women, that we live in a world of gross inequality, some 108 years on from that very first march in New York.

It seems ironic that the backlash to the ABC’s all-female hosting cast for tomorrow is draped in sympathy for the male hosts. Do you think Sylvia Pankhurst gave a hoot about how the men would feel if she marched down the streets to Trafalgar Square?

In the media industry, after all, women outnumber men (55.5% of the workforce) but are still suffering a sizeable pay gap from their male counterparts. Only one-third of our female journalists (35.6%) earn more than $72,000 AUD a year, compared to male journalists, with over half (53.1%) of whom are earning that same figure.

Zooming out, and the national gender pay gap for full time workers has sat at or around 20% for more than two decades. Two decades. According to the Australian Government, “the full-time gender pay gap currently stands at around 18%, with women earning on average only 82% of a man’s pay… This means that a woman would have to work an additional 65 days each year to earn the same as a man.”

Internationally, and the situation of pay equality pales in comparison to the atrocities still committed against women. Across the planet, patriarchal societies are persecuting females by denying them education, personal safety, choice in marriage, autonomy over their bodies, financial freedom, access to food and water, and many other basic freedoms. To be a woman in many places is a prison sentence, if not a death sentence.

In the African nation of Sierra Leone, a staggering 91% of women aged between 15 and 49 have undergone female genital mutilation.

In India, more than 8,000 women were killed in dowry-related crimes in 2013, and a further 100,000 were victims of cruelty by their husbands or male relatives.

In Brazil, 290,000 women are living with HIV, with most unable to access the drugs or medical attention needed to treat or manage the disease.

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

From the day they are born, women will need to fight for their place in this world. They will need to ignore constant and pervasive messaging telling them they are not thin enough, pretty enough, tough enough. They will have to battle for the top jobs and prove that leadership is not a quality innate to the male sex.

They will have to mediate their desire for a family with their passions and careers, face body image issues and workplace bullying. They will be afraid for their safety more often than a man, with one in six falling victim to sexual assault. This is what it is to be a woman.

So for those bleating few up in arms about a national network showcasing an all-female talent on International Women’s Day, I question your motivations. Women are NOT equal, not in our corner of the world nor others; and tomorrow is about asking why.

International Women’s Day isn’t meant to be a polite crowd-pleaser. It’s a protest, a day to be loud and disruptive, to be controversial and clever. Boot the boys, I say, and make tomorrow all about us.

Do we deserve it? Absolutely. Because it’s a long way to gender equality, and we’re still fighting to be heard.