Good day to you one and all! Today, March 8th, as you might have noticed from the unmissable header images, is International Women's Day.
What is international women's day? Well, it's a day that's been set aside for about a hundred years now to highlight and celebrate the achievements of women around the world, and also to illustrate how far the world still ha sto go to accept the female of the human species as people.
That sounds like a silly statement, doesn't it? Women are people. Women are human. It's just common sense.
It's such a basic logical point to make that it's difficult to understand why there are still people - and a lot of them - who treat their dogs better than their women. And these aren't just people in far-flung countries with different cultural values - these are your neighbours. Casual misogyny is everywhere - in fact, it's such an interwoven part of our societies that it's easy to miss, until someone points it out to you.
In my opinion, International Women's Day is only generally meaningfully marked by the people who already treat every day as International Women's Day: women's advocates, feminists, social justice activists, and so on. Other people wonder - what's it all about? Why do we need an International Women's Day? What's the point? Men, you must wonder - what's the point? Women are equals. Aren't they?
Well, no, not really. I really cannot stress to you enough how very not equal we are. In fact, today is a day when I am agry - very angry - at how, even after centuries of work, centuries of campaigning, we have still not managed to come far enough. I shall draw heavily on Melissa McEwan and say that 'I am angry that women are denied autonomy, dignity, respect, the right of consent, safety, security, opportunity, access, equality—and many things smaller than those.'
In the US alone, women are being targeted at this very moment by a blanket movement to restrict reproductive rights and enforce the singular role of the woman as the incubation factory of the human race. I can't even name all the bills currently being rammed through the system, nor any of those which have already failed. I've had a long day. Over here, by contrast, the government is making a move to properly criminalise stalking charges. Some ridiculous number of women are stalked every year, I don't even know. But at the same time, the police secretary over here recently came under fire for dismissing rape as "not a serious offence." Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh called Law student Sandra Fluke "a prostitute" for advocating affordable birth control for students at her Jesuit university.
The fact that people agree with them should really be a demonstration of just how far we still have to go.
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IWD is just one day in the calendar year, but if on this single day more people can be convinced to show an interest in whether or not women are treated like people, not dirt, it will have been successful.
So - what can you do to better respect and promote the equality of women and girls? You know what, forget it, I'm not gonna tell you! Let's have some real discussion this time around, if we can manage it!
So - what can you do to better respect and promote the equality of women and girls? You know what, forget it, I'm not gonna tell you! Let's have some real discussion this time around, if we can manage it!
