I haven’t always been a fan of International Women’s Day.
Largely because I haven’t always known it existed. Here in the U.S., it seems to pass without a lot of fanfare, for the most part. Seems its dwindled a bit around here.
There are no parades, no celebrations, no awareness campaigns taking over the streets like those I experienced in Africa, where I learned that International Women’s Day was a thing.
A fun thing, an important thing, a thing where important people gathered and gave important speeches, where women got together to celebrate their common struggles, and their solidarity.
A day that seemed to be at once an ironic reminder of how far women had come, and how very, very far they had yet to go in terms of status, rights, safety and equity.
I absolutely loved being in Africa, as an American woman, on March 8, because it was such a palpable reminder of how similar the struggles of women around the world, no matter how great the differences usually seemed.
For, while I, and my fellow female Peace Corps volunteers, were liberated, post-feminist American women with rights and freedoms and a sense of independence pretty much off the charts from what most of our African colleagues, mamans, sisters, students, teachers, market vendors and friends could imagine, we didn’t discuss our advancements compared to their lack thereof. We did not compare struggles, trying to determine who was better off, who had traded what for what.
On International Women’s Day we gathered, and sent cards, and planned parades and trainings and gave hugs and laughed in the joy of our solidarity and that common, inexplicable, indescribable bond that comes from the shared struggle of living as women.
And that until systems right themselves and power is shared, our strength is our solidarity, along with our common understanding that what happens to victimize or make vulnerable one woman, happens to each of us.
The theme of International Women’s Day this year is, "Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls" and Lucille Marshall has made a great case in AlterNet for the degree to which violence against women is a necessary focus for the world’s attention and women’s solidarity.
And, while, of course the official International Women’s Day theme is about Violence with a capital V, her article got me to thinking about how so many acts of injustice against women–though not necessary acts of Violence–are equally as detrimental, just as scary, just as disempowering. That violence, defined as, "an abusive or unjust exercise of power," is often far less obvious than a fist in the face.
For when war is waged, it is women who increasingly are forced to give up their lives, sexual and reproductive health and economic security–even if they’re not in uniform.
And when women have no status in marriage and are economically dependent upon men who are enabled and encouraged by society to have multiple sexual partners, it is women who are assaulted in the form of AIDS.
And when girls spend their days hauling water and doing laundry, rather than sitting in school rooms, they are being robbed of the information and knowledge that would protect their health and economic status.
And when a lack of health insurance, an overload of bureacracy and economic insecurity for a mother mean the unnecessary death of a child, these crimes extend beyond the women herself to the society as a whole–and its future.
And the list goes on, as I sit, this March 8, in Washington, D.C., thinking about how injustice against women at any level, to any degree, is not just an act of injustice, but, in fact, often an act of violence.
That maybe inequity is just a euphemism for danger.
And wondering why, then, here in the U.S., International Women’s Day will be noted, but not celebrated with the fanfare I experienced in Africa.
One would think that here in the U.S., where our rights have evolved further than they have in Africa and many other parts of the world–and where we are so aware and empowered to make more demands and speak about how far we have yet to go–that we would have more to celebrate.
More of a fuss to make.
Or perhaps a little more complacency to go with our status.
For in places like the United States, where women face inequities and injustices that are a bit more subtle, a bit less obvious than an inability to go to school or the daily threat of a conflict-sanctioned rape, we can sometimes forget to celebrate how far we’ve come, and to consider just how far we have yet to go.
