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With Strength, With Wisdom, With Solidarity: Reflections on the Importance of International Women's Day
As women throughout the world gather to observe International Women's Day on this, the 100th anniversary of the New York City Bread and Roses March, they do so in the face of a seemingly intractable culture of impunity that enables increasingly horrendous acts of violence against women.
In Kenya, women are being gang-raped in refugee camps. In Afghanistan, young girls are forced into marriage. In Mexico and Guatemala women continue to disappear, the victims of brutal rapes and murder. In Iraq, women are being indiscriminately killed in the name of male honor. In the U.S. military, women are more likely to be assaulted by their fellow soldiers than by any enemy. The list, truly, is endless.
While International Women's Day is, and rightly should be, a day to celebrate the lives and accomplishments of women, a recent statement by the Gabriela Network is correct in pointing out that IWD is, and also must be, more than that:
"We need to return our Day and our Month to their rightful and correct significance in both national and international arenas. Though March was meant to be a celebration of women's achievements, International Women's Day and International Women's Month were also meant to be the time when the women's voice regarding national and international events was meant to be the loudest. State violence has been foremost in women's minds, as this has been the most destructive of life and the conditions for the well-being, not only of womankind, but of the entire human species.
March 8th has been co-opted and turned into a so-called commemoration of women's achievements, as though there were no more need for further achievements. It is time to return March 8th to its historic role as the day women challenge government decisions and policies inimical to peace, justice and the preservation of the human species. It is time for March 8th to be known as the day when women unite and march against state policies dangerous to the health and safety of the nation."
This must be a day when we name and acknowledge the atrocities that are daily perpetrated against women throughout the world. It must be a day to honor our strength and wisdom and renew our commitment to ending these assaults on our lives.
On International Women's Day we must indeed insist on being, as Alice Walker so eloquently put it, the ones we have been waiting for. International Women's Day is a time to stand in the place that we are, and in that place to stand with and for the women of the world.
As you observe International Women's Day, please hold a special place in your hear for women who will be gathering despite the grave danger of doing so, particularly the women in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan who are planning a march and the brave women celebrating in Iraq who tell us, "There will be no civil society without liberated women."
With strength, with wisdom, with solidarity.
Happy International Women's Day.
6 Comments so far
Show All'the women of the world' should say for all the people of the world. we are all in this together. what benefits one benefits all.
Lucinda, I don't know what country you write from, but in the United States, every March 8th, all I see is a whole lot of Americans (men AND women) who have never heard of any such thing as Women's Day.
J B S -- Great point.
It's a shame that has to be addressed by having articles such as this.
Spread the word.
Help us all to HEAL the millennium-long festering wounds betwixt men AND woman - our mutual fears of each other is PROTOTYPICAL of all warfare and abuse throughout the world.
I suspect that bringing woman into the workplace, although positive in countless ways, was orchestrated by the oligarchy's interest in separating us even further from our mothers (while most impressionable). Remember Family Values? There is no logical reason for the 50's standard of living with one bread earner to have been higher than today's standard with two bread winners -- other than a long designed technique to disenfranchise ourselves from prosperity and submit to wage slavery. Not to mention the extremely high rates of woman w/o any retirement planning.
If we were better united as a species, with common interests of men and woman, this economic travesty would not have been allowed to succeed. The power structure pertpetuates the FEAR and separation as a way to control us, and that is going to change!
V I V A __ _ I W D _
Namaste
Namaste
Please read the details of the orchestrated and contrived economic devastation, provided by one of our most informed experts, going by the screen name MiMiCcS.
This whole thread is of crucial importance to create the economic prosperity that we all deserve, and that has been purposedly thwarted, see:
Losing the Future
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
Right. No one I know has ever heard of International Women's Day. I only learned about it a year or two ago, I'm 50, and March 8th is also my birthday (which I happen to think is as more fortunate and has more meaning than "Born on the 4th of July").
I see that there are only 4 comments ahead of me, today on the 10th.
Yikes.
I agree with the heart of your statement. I think we need to name and acknowledge the political policies, cultural traditions and societal habits that are dangerous to the health and safety of humanity so that we can together identify the changes needed.
I also believe that on March 8 we need to name and ackowledge our accomplishments, our strengths as individuals and collectively, to self-evaluate our own behaviours in making the changes that we seek in others,and in the world. It's also a time to replenish, renergize andgather information so that we can move our agenda foward, to provide a venue to join hands to lobby for the changes at the societal level and encourage and support others to do the same.
Over 130 women came together on March 8 in our community. We had a wonderful celebration which was firmly founded on the "We need to be the change we seek." philosophy. We looked at how far we've come as individuals and what we could do to improve our relationship with ourselves,... our family. I am proud to have participated in what we did. It was awesome, based on the fact that we all left knowing ourselves better, feeling our strength, aware of what we are satisfied with, knowing what we want and having some sense of what to do.
As I write this and self-evaluate I understand that taking this to the community, provincial, national and international level is also part of the work to be done and I can see it being incorporated in next year's celebration.
So thanks for your comments Lucinda, it woke me up to the bigger picture!!!!