International Women’s Day
Posted by Michelle Moquin on 9th March 2010
International Women’s Day was yesterday. I’m embarrassed, being that I am such a supporter of women, that I didn’t realize this special day until yesterday after I posted my blog. My apologies to all of the women out there.
It seems that I get so caught up in the abuse and second class treatment of women, by men (not all men), that I neglected to step back and take a break, realize this special day, and honor those same women that I speak about and support. But I will say, one day isn’t enough…not even close.
I found this article that I wanted to share with you:
Admit it or not but we are living in a paternalistic society where males rule over females. Some communities have women seen as less people than men with less rights and privileges.
However, in celebration of the International Womens Day 2010, all men are set to give recognitions to all women in the world for their outstanding contributions in every aspect of the society from politics and business to fashion world.
International Womens Day is an annual celebration which is very similar to Mother’s Day celebration. Men are seen giving gifts, admirations, and flowers to their mothers, girlfriends, wives, sisters, daughters, nieces, and to all women in the world.
In celebration of International Womens Day 2010 in the US, President Barack Obama delivered a speech at theInternational Womens Day reception highlighting several contributions of women in the history of America despite the existing inequalities between men and women including statistics that show “how women just earn 77 cents for every dollar men make; how one in four women is the victim of domestic violence at some point in her life; how women are more than half the population, but make up only 17 percent of the seats in Congress, and less than 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.”
In addition, he also mentioned one of the very first law that he signed which was pro women – the Ledbetter Bill – which gave equal salaries for those women who can do the same work as men do.
Men and women are created equal by God. We are all human beings which deserves respect. Often we value women less than men because of the paternalistic nature of the society but through this International Womens Day 2010 celebration, people are (sic) ought to recognize that men need women and that they should be given equal rights and priorities in this world.
I have issue with the second sentence in the first paragraph: “Some communities have women seen as less people than men with less rights and privileges.” Helloo…wake up. ’Some communities have women seen‘? Like the second class treatment of women is some small community issue? And how are women seen as less than men? As if it is an opinion and not a fact. Women aren’t ‘seen’ as less people than men, they are treated that way!
How about saying: “Some countries treat women as less people than men with less rights and privileges.” Now that is a fact, and if we want to be totally truthful, you would say, “Countries treat women as less people than men with less rights and privileges.” Because I don’t know of any country that treats women as equals in every way to men. Do you? If you do, blog me.
I also have issue with the last paragraph, especially with the sentence “Often we value women less than men because of the paternalistic nature of the society…”
paternalism |p??t?rnl?iz?m|nounthe policy or practice on the part of people in positions of authority of restricting the freedom and responsibilities of those subordinate to them in the subordinates’ supposed best interest : the arrogance and paternalism that underlies cradle-to-grave employment contracts.
That sentence is so matter of fact. How easily one can describe a woman’s place in society in one simple sentence, as if it’s no big deal that women are treated and considered this way. Let’s give women a day…give them a day where we can recognize, revere and respect them- just a day though.
‘Paternalistic’ may be our present society but is it the ‘nature’ of the society? Is it inevitable, unavoidable? No, this was and is a grand creation, scheme if you will, well thought out, by men. There is nothing ‘natural’ about women being labeled in our society as ‘subordinates’ to men…there is nothing ‘natural’ about men ‘restricting our freedom and responsibilities’…there is nothing ‘natural’ about a man deciding a woman’s fate by claiming that he is acting ‘supposedly’ out of her ‘best interest’. We all know that our best interest is not considered at all, otherwise men would heed our needs. Men, not all, think mostly of themselves, and revere and respect mostly other men.
Ok…stop me before I get off on men, on a day (more than one:) that I want to revere women.
Let me just add, that I actually have issue with the entire article. Even in an article honoring women the individual can’t tell it like it truly is. The revealing part is this article was written by a woman. Just where is the passion in the support and admiration for her sisters?
Here’s a story that not only gives us a perfect example of men treating a woman as a ‘subordinate’ and ‘restricting’ her ‘responsibilities’ and ‘freedom’ to learn, but more importantly of women supporting women. This story is about a woman who didn’t give up because of the encouragement and support of another woman.
Sometimes, if we’re very fortunate, we meet the one person who will forever change the course of our lives. Working in the Planning Unit of the Ministry of Education in Malawi I met mine.
I met Nwanganga Shields, a Nigerian woman who was heading the World Bank team that was working on the Education and Health programmes in Malawi. I could not believe that this African woman had so much power; every time she sent a message that she was bringing her team to Malawi everybody in the Ministry was running around preparing for her visit.
She requested that I work for her, and with every meeting she gave me more challenging work–including me in the studies and giving me more responsibilities on the ground.
One day she said to me, “If you are doing this work without training then you need to go to graduate school.” She found a place for me at the George Washington University at the School of Education. The battle now was to convince the men in the Ministry to let me go.
She noticed that when we had meetings, I was always sent to go and inform the kitchen to bring the tea. One day as I stood up in the meeting she asked me why I was going to call for the tea when I needed to contribute to the meeting. She said this is the last time you are doing tea duty, you have a degree and you are going to graduate school. She asked the meeting if anybody had an objection, everybody was quiet. She said she would take it as agreement since nobody had objected. Nwanganga is an African woman and she knew that there was no agreement, the men around the table were just shocked and stunned.
After she left, I was called and informed that I would not be going to graduate school at the George Washington University — I was devastated. I believed I wanted an American education because I wanted to be like Nwanganga Shields, fearless, confident, knowledgeable and proud to be African. In all the time I knew Nwanganga, and even though she was married to an Irishman, I had never seen her put on western clothes! She was so proud to be African, even though her views and attitude were completely western.
I was so crushed to be calling Nwanganga to tell her that I would not be taking my place at George Washington as planned. I should have known this fearless, determined woman would not be stopped. Nwanganga immediately sent me to the British Airways office where she had a ticket to America waiting for me.
It took a month after I arrived, but she managed to convince the Ministry to allow me to start school. She helped me find a place to stay, she got me a tutor to learn even basic skills like keyboarding, and she got me a job at the World Bank so that I could continue to work on research projects.
Every time I was homesick or discouraged she would invite me to her house and cook me African food and remind me that it was important that I succeed for the sake of other Malawian women who had never been given the same opportunity because of the assumption that they couldn’t do it.
She not only inspired me to strive to be like her, she inspired me to fight to open doors for other women.
If this one woman had not made that decision to fight so that I could go to graduate school I would have never left Malawi. I owe that one woman my education. Because of her I have educated my own children, and because of her my daughters do not think they might go to graduate school, they know they will. And because of this woman, every time a woman tells me that she wants to do something and there is a stumbling block in front of her, I start looking for solutions right away.
Nwanganga showed me that you should stop at nothing to open a door for a fellow woman. My way of saying thank you to her is helping other women the way she helped me. I took the job as Head of Raising Malawi Academy for Girls because it gives me the opportunity to do for hundreds of girls what Nwanganga did for me.
What an opportunity, to be able to say thank you to Nwanganga over and over again.
I hope that one day, when Raising Malawi Academy for Girls is open she will come to Malawi and speak to the girls in the school and give them the same inspirational talks she gave to me.
To women: I recognize you. I revere you. I respect you. I love you.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my ‘loyal’(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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