International Women's Day (IWD) had an even greater significance for me this year.

While women of the world commemorated their economic, political and social achievements on Saturday March 8, my family had a special sisterhood celebration.

Last Thursday, I gave birth to my baby girl Cordelia. So my hopes for women in the future took a personal turn.

I can not help but wonder what opportunities and possibilities she faces in years ahead.

I'm excited by the promise of her future.

My great hope is, of course, for her health and happiness. My wish is also for her to grow up in a truly equal society: one in which gender discrimination is a thing of the past.

Cordelia joins a line of Stott women most of whom have been committed to the ideal of equality of opportunity for the sexes and living it in their own ways.

 Her great grandmother - from whom she gets her middle name (as do I) Jessica Stott nee Swinfield -- was the ninth and last child.

My mother (her daughter) Shirley says she was strong, tactful, adored by her children; with a lovely voice and quiet charm but shy.

Her feminism showed in her wish for education and independence for her daughter. To eke out her War Widow's Pension, she worked in a factory to send my Mother to University. It was only her second paid job in life.

As a girl, she stayed home and look after her lame mother after her stroke. My mother believes she loved the factory (motor parts manufacturers) and its bustling life after 50 years at home.

She died when I was two but I see her picture each day - four generations of Stott women are in my picture frame including Jessica's rather serious-looking Mum (those stern 19th century portraits).

I now add Cordelia's picture to that frame representing the next generation.

She is lucky to be born in this era in a country as fortunate and prosperous as ours. I wonder how other female babies born around the globe this week fare in the years ahead?

The World Health Organisation tells us 100-140 million girls and women alive today have experienced some form of genital mutilation. UNICEF tells us that more than 300,000 children under 18 are being exploited in more than 30 armed conflicts world-wide and many young girls are forced to marry or have sex with male combatants.

The picture, while bleak, in many countries is improving.

Tools -- like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) -- adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 is one way girls and women's lives have got better.

While the CEDAW may have provided many women and girls with access to previously restricted opportunities - including the right to an education and political representation -- enforcing the Convention ideals into national law has been troublesome, even in our own backyard.

The Optional Protocol to the CEDAW was established more than eight years ago to strengthen the enforcement mechanisms available for the rights within the Convention yet, the former Howard administration refused to enshrine the basic human right principles into Australian Law.

While women in Australia are not necessarily subject to the same degree of oppression and discrimination our sisters in developing nations may endure, failing to legislate on both direct and indirect forms of gender-based discrimination, has prevented this issue from being tackled.

The Government promised in Opposition to sign and ratify the Protocol - what a nice IWD present this would have been.

I want Cordelia to look back years from now and celebrate the legislative, policy and cultural changes that ensured she and her global sisters could enjoy the same benefits that I'm sure, and hope her brother Conrad can take for granted.

Cordelia means 'heart' I hope that she will use hers to fight for opportunities for her sisters in the years to come. But for now, just looking at her stills my beating one.