Saturday, March 9, 2019

About the women's day

The earliest Women's Day observance, called "National Woman's Day," was held on February 28, 1909, in New York, organized by the Socialist Party of America. All over the world, the celebration started and has been celebrated at different times, and only in 1975, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for women's rights and world peace.
The origin is still uncertain but what it is clear is that we are still far from obtaining a universal concept of gender equality.
Meanwhile, in western countries, we can say that we achieved a lot from the days when women were considered nothing but commodities, we are still far from achieving the final goal on the whole planet.

When men ask me why there should be a women's day, when I have the chance to vote, to dress the way I want, to express my opinion to divorce, have a job, have holidays for parental leave and many other equal rights in front of the law and in front of the society, I always reply "What about the rest of the world?"
Yes, what about those women that are still kept in slavery, those who cannot have a voice, those who do not know freedom, so they cannot even fight for something they cannot even conceive?
Those are the women for which the International Women's day is created.
I have heard many men saying that women are physically different so they cannot do the same jobs as men.
How simplistic!
If it were only a matter of doing the same jobs, the reason why women are fighting for their place in society.
The issue is not doing the same jobs, but being judged the same way of men. Being equal doesn't mean to deny the physical differences, not the mental differences, we are different, but this doesn't imply being inferior.
Women are still judged following the ill concept of "how a woman should behave" based on centuries ago unwritten rules.
I would like to see the time that if a woman is enjoying her freedom with many men, should be considered at the same level as a man who is frequenting many women. If he is cool, she is cool.
But you understand that this is a centuries ingrained concept, and to change the mindset of people, it will take perhaps millennia.

To be honest, I have been grown up and living in countries which reached quite a high level in gender equality. In my whole life, I have been walking out alone in the middle of the night and never even thought for a second about the possibility of being assaulted. I dressed the way I wanted without having been labeled as a prostitute or a bad person. I had the chance to pursue the career I wanted without anyone who was there telling me that since I was a woman, I could not access education.
All these goals, have been achieved by some women, are not valid for all the women.
I have traveled long enough out from my comfort zone to understand how far this world is from the achievement of global gender equality and how much we need still to fight for reaching it.
This, my friends, is the reason why we need the International Women's day; to give the voice to those who do not have them.
I wish, one day, humankind will reach the point that they will declare the International Woman's day as obsolete, as any woman in the world is seen under the same light as a man, with all the differences, which are not seen as a restriction to their freedom.

Until then Happy Women's day to those who cannot even access a computer to read my greetings.
Cheers!

2 comments:

  1. May these oppressed women find their way. Sadly, so many cannot because they don't have the means.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brava! Excellent post. My compliments!

    ReplyDelete

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