Officially There Is No ‘Official’ International Women’s Day Website

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Mar 092011
 

International Women’s Day is celebrated throughout the world by numerous organizations and women in a large variety of ways.  Sort of like Christmas.  As we’ve noted for the last several years, it is truly objectionable that the corporate-run InternationalWomensDay.com website bills itself as ‘the’ International Women’s Day website.  Yes it provides some good resources, but so do a lot of other sites and because of the decentralized global nature of IWD, there simply is no such thing as an official site and it is misleading to claim to be such.

Yesterday, the site’s founder, Glenda Stone, took the usurpation to new levels with a press release about the website being hacked, referring to the site as “the global hub” for International Women’s Day.  To be very clear, FPN is opposed to anyone’s site being hacked, and if in fact it was done deliberately on IWD (which Ms. Stone asserts but does not back up with facts), it is worrisome.  We’ve been on the receiving end of that and it is expensive, time-consuming and no fun to recover from and not a productive tactic for fostering dialog or change.

But that does not change the fact that it is absolutely wrong to presume that a private site is so central to IWD.  It isn’t and I feel quite sure we would all carry on with our observances without the site, just as we did before the site existed.

Yesterday I also become aware for the first time that there is an InternationalWomensDay.org website, run by the Women’s Information Network, and yes, you guessed it, it is also a private venture organized by motivational speaker Dr Paula Fellingham. The website seems to be geared towards getting participants to attend events that cost $35 per ticket.  And why would you pay that? Because the program included a “Buns of Steel” star talking about “How to Have the Body Your Body Wants to Be” and a soap opera star was on the agenda as well.  And move over Bread and Roses, they have an original IWD theme song.

It is truly unfortunate that a responsible organization, such as  the U.N., did not safeguard these urls, and even more unfortunate that they have been callously taken over by private parties. While wishing Ms. Stone and Dr. Fellingham the best in their personal ventures, FPN urges both of them to do the right thing and quit using these sites in privately directed ways.  Well intentioned though they may, at least in part be, both sites are self-serving and a true disservice to the women of the world.

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 Posted by Fempeace on March 9, 2011

The Imperative Of Women’s Human Rights–Reflections On The 100th Anniversary Of International Women’s Day

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Mar 072011
 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.  It is a time to celebrate the lives of women and to renew our commitment to women’s human rights throughout the world.

That it is even necessary to have such a day should give us pause.  There is not, after all, an International Men’s Day.  But the truth is that while women may be half of the world’s population, they most assuredly are not equal stakeholders when it comes to human rights and empowerment.

An early International Women's Day event

Here in the U.S., women’s reproductive health rights are under sustained siege as never before.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Sudan women are raped with impunity.  In Mexico and Guatemala, thousands of women have gone missing and been brutally murdered and the perpetrators roam freely.  Honor killings continue to be a huge problem in the Middle East and female genital mutilation is still a common practice in many parts of Africa.  In southeast Asia and eastern Europe, women are trafficked into sexual slavery.  In India there are dowry murders.

Million Women Rise March in London

The above isn’t even close to an exhaustive list of human rights violations perpetrated against women, but merely serves to illustrate that misogyny in its many guises is globally systemic.  There are so many people working to stop these atrocities, but yet they continue unabated, year in and year out for the very simple reason that putting a halt to them challenges the patriarchal power structure that controls our world.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity of tackling even one of the problems discussed above.  The idea of addressing them in their entirety seems beyond human power. But indeed, for women to be fully empowered, we must insist that the connections between individual misogynies be made and that the problem be addressed in full.  And yes, that implies profound changes for both men and women, but they are changes for the common good and on this 100th anniversary of IWD, we must find the will to make it so.  Anything less imperils us all.

IWD poster from Russia

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 Posted by Fempeace on March 7, 2011

Great Idea for IWD–No Rights, No Women

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Feb 172011
 

As long time readers of this blog know, I am a strong supporter of International Women’s Day (March 8th, which will be the 100th anniversary of IWD).  It is, without qualification, the most inspiring day of the year when women around the world stand together to celebrate our lives and raise awareness about the full spectrum of women’s human rights needs–an end to violence, education, economic parity, healthcare, etc.

Each year on this blog, I try to highlight some of the many wonderful activities that are taking place throughout the world.  This year due to extraordinary other demands on my time, I will not be able to devote as much time to this as in previous years, but I will be writing a few posts and I want to begin with this amazing idea,

a group of enterprising young Lebanese women, have created a “No Rights, No Women” movement to make the Lebanese community and law makers understand how it feels to be a “half-citizen”.  On March 8th, International Women’s Day, the women and their supporters (myself included) will give up their “womanship” in favor of their “citizenship”. They will dress like men, act like men, talk like men, and even BE men.They are urging all who support the “No Rights, No Women” movement… to dress like men and act like men in their universities, offices, in coffee shops, on the streets, and in their homes.

Click the link above and you can join them on Twitter and Facebook.  But here is the best part–you can join the movement from wherever you are by growing a ‘stache and posting a picture of yourself as a man.  So to make it easy for you, here is a moustache you can cut out and use for your transformation (their website offers a variety of other styles if this doesn’t suit):

Today Lebanon, tomorrow the world!

If you know of a great IWD celebration, please post a link in the comments!

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 Posted by Fempeace on February 17, 2011

Continuing Reflections On International Women’s Day

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Mar 092010
 

Women’s Space has a wonderful collection of videos honoring women (we shamelessly borrowed this one, but go to Women’s Space to see the others):

FPN member Jane Roberts, co-founder of the 34 Million Friends of the United Nations Population Fund, weighs on on gender equality and maternal health.

IWD reflections from FPN Director Lucinda Marshall on her blog, Reclaiming Medusa.

CNN weighs in here.

Protesting in Uganda

Ugandan women are protesting, not celebrating because as they elegantly point out, equality remains elusive.

My commentary gets picked up in Costa Rica.

RAWA‘s statement.

Thoughts about IWD in Nepal.

Antonia Zerbisias in the Toronto Star.

The Greenbelt Movement celebrates IWD.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbiner of Moms Rising shares her thoughts on why the U.S. needs IWD.

Gender Across Borders has links to all the blogs that participated in the IWD blogathon.

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 Posted by Fempeace on March 9, 2010

So Much IWD Goodness, So Little Time

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Mar 082010
 

International Women’s Day is in part a day of celebration and also one to give us pause, here are a few worthy shares from my inbox on this important day:

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 Posted by Fempeace on March 8, 2010
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