When we give, we gain. International Women's Day 2026

This years theme Give To Gain "emphasizes the power of reciprocity and support. When people, organizations, and communities give generously, opportunities and support for women increase. Giving is not a subtraction, it's intentional multiplication. When women thrive, we all rise. " (IWD, 2026)

Whether through knowledge, resources, infrastructure, visibility, advocacy, education, training, mentoring, or time, contributing to the advancement of sex and gender based care and research will bring benefit to the whole community.

In this post I highlight just some of the many women and organisations who have given to help us gain more gender equality for women with Parkinson's in research, care and treatment.

Unmet needs

It all started with over 200 women worldwide giving their time to complete a survey on the impact of hormones on their Parkinson's symptoms, circulated through the PD Avengers and the Women's Parkinson's Project. This led to a webinar with Maria Teresa Ferretti, who was the Chief Science Officer of the Women's Brain Project at the time. She was blown away by the fact that 90% of the women reported that their neurologists didn't discuss their hormones with them and the impact on their Parkinson's.

This led to a webinar with Cure Parkinson's Trust and the PMD Alliance, where over 600 women attended across both webinars, raising many issues that they were experiencing whilst living with Parkinson's. This led to three expert neurologists and three women with Parkinson's writing a paper on the unmet needs of women with Parkinson's,. I am forever grateful for those original webinars supported by Helen Matthews of the Cure Parkinson's Trust and the PMD Alliance and for Professor Indu Subramanian, and for her direction and leadership on writing the paper that set this all in train.

 Parkinson's UK

Over the past few years, Parkinson's UK have supported the need for more focus on women with Parkinson's and their individual needs for living with the disease. They have just launched a new guide for women with Parkinson's, which has been put together by experts in the community alongside women living with Parkinson's. This is a major step forward to have a resource like this available to women with Parkinson's.

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Parkinson's Europe

Parkinson’s Life special episode for International Women’s Day 2026  exploring the unique and often overlooked experiences of women living with Parkinson's

Two women with young onset Parkinson's Richelle Flanagan and Cathy Molohan share their thoughts alongside neurologist and researcher. Silvia Enriquez.

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In Her Shoes

Created by women with young onset Parkinson's. In Her Shoes discusses topics such as periods, pills, pregnancy, partners, and the power of positivity —topics that are not discussed due to lack of time or knowledge. We feel that this information needs to be shared with our YOPD sisters. Available in multiple languages.

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Cure Parkinson's Trust

For several years, the Cure Parkinson's Trust has hosted International Women's Day webinars focusing on the needs of women with Parkinson's.

Watch back

Barbara Salzberg Matthews

Barbara, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2020, hopes the fresh illustrations will raise vital awareness of the fact that Parkinson’s affects women almost as frequently as men. They are also intended to help women with the condition to feel more fairly represented across the globe.

The campaign is supported by a range of Parkinson’s organisations around the world, including Parkinson’s Europe, Parkinson Canada, The Michael J Fox Foundation, and the Women’s Parkinson’s Project.

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Professor Aideen Sullivan

Professor Aideen Sullivan is Director of UCC Futures : Future Ageing and Brain Science. She leads an active research group focused on Parkinson’s disease. Aideen and her team at University College Cork conducted the first world-first study on hormonal impact on women with Parkinson's disease, the final results of which will be published in time for the World Parkinson's Congress this June.

And to all the women with Parkinson's who took part in the My Moves Matter study, carried out with UCC. We're so grateful for the 493 women who took part, including 131 women who tracked using the app over the duration of the study.

Without your giving of your time to this study, we wouldn't have the results that we're beginning to find. What you give, we the community gain back, and this will hopefully help towards changing the trajectory of care and research of women with Parkinson's.

And finally I would like to acknowledge and thank an angel investor who helped us to part fund an innovation voucher from Enterprise Ireland which made this research possible.

Read more.

France Parkinson

Thanks to funding from France Parkinson a research project called LadyPD is entirely dedicated to looking at the impact of the menstrual cycle on young-onset women with Parkinson's. This study examines numerous aspects—hormonal, clinical, biological, and social—to better understand the specificities of the disease in women. Its goal is simple: to fill the knowledge gap in order to offer more personalized, fairer, and more effective care for all women in the future. I am very grateful for the collaboration with Professor Elena Moro in applying for this grant and for the neurologists running the trial in the four neurological centres in France. The My Moves Matter app is utilised in this study, and the study is still looking for participants, so please read more to take part.

Grâce au financement de France Parkinson, le projet de recherche LadyPD est entièrement consacré à l'étude de l'impact du cycle menstruel sur les femmes atteintes de la maladie de Parkinson à un jeune âge. Cette étude examine de nombreux aspects – hormonaux, cliniques, biologiques et sociaux – afin de mieux comprendre les spécificités de la maladie chez les femmes. Son objectif est simple : combler le manque de connaissances pour offrir à l'avenir des soins plus personnalisés, plus équitables et plus efficaces à toutes les femmes. L'outil « My Moves Matter » est utilisé dans cette étude, qui recherche encore des participantes. Pour en savoir plus et participer, veuillez consulter les informations complémentaires.

GEM PD

I was delighted to be at the European launch of the Global Evidence in Medicine for Parkinson’s disease (GEM-PD) initiative by the Critical Path Institute which is focusing on closing the gender gap in PD research and care through a comprehensive approach that leverages patient voices, data science, digital health technologies, and regulatory science. This is a major step forward for research into women with Parkinson's. We have high expectations of many research companies around the world collaborating with their published research to share data, to enable research into aggregated data to see what we can be found in terms of sex and gender differences and and whether they will lead to new treatment pathways and research.

Learn more

I can't leave this blog without a mention to the Women's Parkinson's Project (WPP) and my co-founders Sree Sripathy and Kat Hill. We came together to form the organization in 2021 after we all connected at the 2019 World Parkinson Congress. We set up WPP purely as a call to action to raise the voices of women with Parkinson's in relation to their specific care needs and research needs.

After five years of being in operation, due to commitments for all of us, we decided to bring the Women's Parkinson's Project to an end, having the knowledge that it fulfilled its aim to raise the voices of women with PD.

There are a huge number of women out there raising their voices for women with Parkinson's. From Sharon Krishner, Maria De Leon Sonia Mathur, Omotola Thomas, Gaynor Edwards, Jennifer Parkinson-Elgin who started this path long before I joined the campaign with Kat Hill and Sree Sripathy alongside the ladies of Con de P Paqui Ruiz and Sabela Avion Martinez and Annelien Oosterbaan and Kristi La Monica to the newer women on the block leading the charge, including Esther Labib-Kiyarash, Alllie Signorelli, Caitlin Nagy and the many more women out there raising our voices.

We see now globally there are others taking on this mantle, and most importantly, organizations, clinicians and researchers are now beginning to see that we indeed are not small men. And that current care should be more personalised based on the differences we are aware of today, such as the fact that women suffer much more from dyskinesia than men. We are confident that future drug treatments may arise out of acknowledging the unique differences between women and men including how they are diagnosed, how they respond to drugs and lhow they live differently with Parkinson's.

Which brings me back to the theme of this year's International Women's Day: GiveToGain.

Although it has been a long five years of advocating for women with Parkinson's, without a shadow of a doubt, we are now beginning to see the gains from the giving.

Thanks to all the people and the organisations who are moving the needle forward for sex and gender care and research in Parkinson's. And to finish I think this video submission for the Red Thread campaign for World Parkinson's Congress 2026 in Arizona this May sums it up for me.