INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: Breaking Beyond Barriers
08 March 2008 1:30 pm by Taylor Marsh
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: Breaking Beyond Barriers
Top United Nations officials commemorated this year’s International Women’s
Day by calling on countries to invest more in women and girls, warning that
failing to do so will undermine efforts to achieve global development targets.
In his message for the Day, Secretary-General drew attention to the
“serious” gap between policy and practice in many countries when
it comes to gender equality, as reflected in a lack of resources and insufficient
budgetary allocations.
Female veterans “This failure of funding undermines
not only our endeavours for gender equality and women’s empowerment as such;
it also holds back our efforts to reach all the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs),” he said, referring to the global pledges to slash poverty and
other social ills, all by 2015. “As we know from long and indisputable
experience, investing in women and girls has a multiplier effect on productivity
and sustained economic growth,” he added, noting that no measure
is more important in advancing education and health, including the prevention
of HIV/AIDS, or as likely to improve nutrition, or reduce infant and maternal
mortality. Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund
(UNFPA), agreed that “if we want to achieve the Millennium Development
Goals, we need more investments in women and girls. “Whether
we are looking at it from a human rights, political or economic point of view,
the conclusion is the same: It makes sense to invest in women. The returns
are high for women themselves and for the world at large,”
she said.Marking
International Day, top UN officials urge greater investments in women
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| Women veterans tell their stories. |
Google has no special graphic for it today. No doubt they’re readying their shamrock’s instead.
Women, schwomen, celebrating women, it’s so cliche.
Tell that to Irene Castro:
Irene Castro played a vital role in a historic — but little known — event that quietly marked the end of an era and launched another.
Castro, who joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1975, was a member of a detail with the last WAC company in Europe to lower the WAC flag for the final time when the corps was deactivated in 1978. Its members were then integrated into the regular U.S. Army.
Tell that to the women in the Air Force:
… .. About 20 percent of today’s Air Force is women, and serve in 99 percent of all Air Force career fields. Women pilots fly not only noncombatant aircraft such as transports and tankers, but also the F-15 Eagle, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and, most recently, the A-10 Thunderbolt II.
Brig. Gen. Sue J. Helms, the 45th Space Wing commander at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., is an accomplished NASA astronaut who flew on the space shuttle and made the longest space walk to date. The women pilots of today’s Air Force carry on the legacy and the motto of the WASPs, “We live in the wind and sand, and our eyes are on the stars.”
Tell that to the
women of Afghanistan:
Young women know a different Afghanistan than generations past – they can
go to school and find work.But neither they nor their elders know peace yet, and many said Saturday
that is the only thing holding back the full advancement of women in Afghan
society.“When security becomes good, when it becomes safe and we feel we can
leave our children outside, no bomb blasts, no kidnapping, nothing, that’s
when things will be better for women,” said Rangina Farescshta, one of
the women who attended a rally organized by the provincial women’s council
in Kandahar. … ..
Around the world people are standing
up for women’s rights:
The issues highlighted crossed a wide spectrum, including abortion rights
in Italy, violence against women in Iraq and women hostages in Colombia.Nearly 100 years old, the day marks the worldwide struggle for equal rights
for half the globe’s population.Scores of women rallied outside a Baghdad hotel demanding an end to violence
and equal social status with men.“Stop neglecting women. Stop killing women. Stop creating widows,”
read a large banner that the women, from various ethnic and religious backgrounds,
held at the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad’s central Karrada neighbourhood. …
..
Pay
inequality is high on the list:
International Women’s Day has been marked around the world with calls to
end discrimination against women. In Europe thousands of women took to the
streets and French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed to introduce fines to combat
pay inequality.
India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi on Saturday said that International
Women’s Day was a ‘day of humanity’, one which celebrates and symbolises everything
about life.Speaking at the FICCI Ladies Organisation celebration of “International
Women’s Day” here today, she said it was dangerous to leave everything
to men and exhorted women to aspire to be in positions of leadership.“Women should stop being a minority,” she said. “Women have
talent and leadership abilities. We just have to let them in and make them
be visible,” she said.She also called upon Finance Minister P Chidambaram to include incentives
for corporates to encourage setting up day care centres in offices, which
would go a long way in helping women with children. … ..
Trinidad champions “investing
in women and girls”:
Women now comprise 32 per cent of Trinidad and Tobago’s Cabinet, according
to Culture Minister Marlene Mc Donald.She was speaking during the launch of International Women’s Day at the Brian
Lara Promenade, Port of Spain, yesterday where scores of women from all walks
of life participated in the celebrations.The theme for local events was “Investing in Women and Girls” while
the International theme for this year’s celebrations was “Financing for
Gender Equality”.
Thailand:
According to the Report on Thailand Gender-Disaggregated Statistics 2008,
released earlier this week, Thai women still suffer inequalities and rights
violations, despite their having proved that professionally they are on a
par with men.The following statistics are taken from that report.
- Cases in court of rape and sexual violence against women rose steadily
from 4,896 to 9,653 during 2002-2006.- Most women practise birth control with popular methods such as oral pills
and female sterilisation. The male sterilisation rate is only 1%.- Mothers have less time for themselves. Women, on average, spend six hours
a day taking care of their family, compared with 3.5 hours for men.- In the 2005 general election, women made up only 11.4% of the House of
Representatives. In 2007, women accounted for 11.3% of political party executives.
The now-defunct Thai Rak Thai party had the highest proportion of female
politicians.- Women are better educated with a higher rate of high school and university
graduation than men.- Despite equal and even better qualifications, only 22% of senior executive
posts in Thai listed companies and 35% of management positions are filled
by women.
It’s a day to celebrate women all over the world. I thank my lucky stars for
all the men in my life, including the few in the Democratic party who have stood
up for women against the covert sexism running throughout the progressive coalition.
Men who celebrate with me, like my feminist, blue collar husband, as well as
my big brother, who taught me about politics and illustrated what a feminist
man looked like when I watched him live his life, as well as through his politics
as he debated the likes of Phyllis Schlafly in Missouri when I was a kid.
To
all of you fabulous male TM.com readers and commenters, and you lurkers too,
thank God for you all.
Women rock. Now we all have to make sure more women rule. Lt. General Claudia Kennedy agrees.
