The International Woman’s Day theme for 2016 is “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”
Here are the final words of Ban Ki-moon’s speech “From the Glass Ceiling to a Carpet of Shards”
“On this International Women’s Day, I remain outraged by the denial of rights to women and girls – but I take heart from the people everywhere who act on the secure knowledge that women’s empowerment leads to society’s advancement. Let us devote solid funding, courageous advocacy and unbending political will to achieving gender equality around the world. There is no greater investment in our common future.”
We cannot deny there has been progress: We have seen women become Presidents of different countries, and the US may (or may not) be the next one.
But…women are still the main victims in domestic violence and rape which in some countries is even justified and defended on cultural grounds. Rape is a strategy in wars, and the trafficking of women for enforced prostitution covers the whole planet.
Women are now represented in the higher echelons of academia, boardrooms, the judiciary and most professions.
But… They are still a minority, there is a persistent gender pay gap (calculated on average as £300,000 over a person’s working life: The Guardian) and the loss of workers’ rights in the free market dogma has meant that women are less protected at the time of pregnancy and the needs of childcare.
The horrors of female genital mutilation as well as the killing of baby girls at birth and female foetuses have been acknowledged and progressively outlawed.
But… Such practices remain widespread and entrenched with different justifications, often practiced by the very women damaged by them, showing the power of cultural beliefs on a community’s individual.
Women have been at the forefront of the peace and nonviolence movement.
But… In order to succeed, or ‘be accepted’ in politics many women have adopted ‘macho’ positions colluding with the worst warmongers, arms dealers and genocidal maniacs.
Some progress has been made on women priests.
But… the main religions continue to have a male dominated hierarchy and much to say about women’s reproductive rights.
How can we liberate ourselves from the Buts…?
Here is the most important issue, that the liberation of women is about the liberation of humanity, no matter the gender, or the colour, or the belief, for that matter. To think that the men who exercise violence against women are not prisoners too, prisoners of their own violence and contradictions, to think in terms of taking revenge on them, to believe that we can protect women just by punishing men is a grave misconception.
We live in a system that has evolved from the times of Hammurabi, equating justice with retribution. This is our cultural in-built or default position. There are many examples of individuals and groups trying to deviate from it but the power of media monsters such as Hollywood prevents their expansion. Women are not exceptions. Inevitably many (justifiably) angry women have often turned into vengeful women, breaking the possibility of communication and collaboration with all sectors of the population to eradicate violence and injustice. Only education, the protection of children from situations of domestic violence and protecting everybody from frustration and low self esteem created by the present dehumanised cut-throat competitive system can reduce violence in people. Laws are important to protect women as a first and immediate step but long term, profound personal change cannot be imposed, it has to be created as a new culture.
On international women’s day we invite all women and all men to get involved actively in order to eliminate violence in all its forms and to create a humanised world of equal rights and equal opportunities for all.
