International Women’s Day at 100–We’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe
I tore open the New York Times this morning, hoping to see an article about International Women’s Day, today, March 8.
Nada. Zilch. Nothing recognizing a day first observed in 1909 and ingrained in the global women’s movement.
The economy dominates the news and for good reason, but why not at least an op ed that tells readers the effect of the global financial meltdown women and the spiraling effect that has on families. But then when it comes to cash circulation worldwide, women do 2/3 of the work but get 10% of the income, according to the International Women’s Day 2009 website. If gold rules, then no wonder that only 21% of news stories globally are about women. Yet women continue to be the primary victims of sex trafficking and other sexual abuse, dislocation from wars they didn’t start, and repressive practices such as genital cutting and even restrictions on physical movement.
Paradoxically, so many of the world’s ills could be cured by simply equalizing those gender imbalances through education, employment opportunity, and access to health care including reproductive health care. Thanks to Lucinda Marshall at Feminist Peace Network for sharing this video of Queen Rania explaining how and why that is. Watch it and then ask why the media isn’t making more of this day.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7-Ajx51J4A[/youtube]
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Sex, Power, Pandemics, and How Women
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Yahoo’s homepage logo features a lively flash turning one of its “o’s” into the symbol for “woman”–purple no less, which for those of us who like to know these symbols represents the American suffragists’ favored accent color along with their traditional white garb. And they have created flower-rimmed a page that mainly uses material from the elaborate International Women’s Day 2009 website sponsored by Aurora, a London-based company founded by Glenda Stone that connects women with employers globally. That the site is also supported by major corporations such as Deloitte and Cisco, whose logos appear proudly under the masthead, shows not just that women have arrived in a profound way, but that women’s economic power is sufficient that we’re worth spending non-cosmetic advertising dollars on.
Women have made so many gains that it’s reasonable to ask whether we still need IWD. I’d say it’s a day to celebrate all the accomplishments of the past century, while at the same time recommitting ourselves to the vast work still ahead of us to eliminate gender-based inequality that results in poverty, violence, and abuse.
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.