International Women's Day (video)

Ashley Wells, Amber Dorrian, Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Read Wisdom Quarterly's featured article this month: "The Buddha's Women"

 

Solidarity with women's struggles worldwide

In recognition of women here, now, everywhere, and throughout history, "International Women's Day" celebrates their contributions.  It is a celebration of more than half of the Earth's population.

  

It has been a history of being discounted, disempowered, disenfranchised, and made to feel less worthy than violent oppressors. But "power" does not derive solely from force. As great women in history (his story) reveal, even as the group is discounted, heroines emerge.

 

(Moksh) Documentary by Deepesh Vesuwala and Team highlighting an end to Eve teasing

  

Are men to blame? Perhaps. But that is only part of it. It is a distortion to imagine that it is boys against girls. How many women are against women, and how many men are pro-women? When we create a false dichotomy -- imagining that two sides are completely opposed -- we lose power. The history of gender has always been more subtle, more nuanced.

 

Even male neighbors

Who teaches children the culture's sexist ways? Those who raise the children. Which gender does most of the raising of children?

 

When we uplift one another, men and women as well as women and women, we uplift everyone. If we imagine the Amazon, we can ask: Who needs men? Even Amazon women needed men. Imagine a fascist nation and ask, Who needs women? Even fascists need women.

Shall we wait for all the world to be fair before we assert ourselves as individuals? Shall we wait for Congress to gain gender equality before we join Congress? Shall we seethe in anger that women have been mistreated before treating them better? We can hate the discriminators, or we can create what the world needs.
 
Reparations. Shall we demand reparations then do nothing until we get them?

Let's take life off "hold" and live now as we make things better. Pres. Obama finally did something good today -- signing an act (VAWA) to treat Native American women and others more equally. It's a small start for the third "Bush" Administration, but it is something.
 
Does it end rape in Washington, DC? Or Eve teasing (sexual harassment) in India? Or infanticide in China? Or sexist segregation in the Islamic world? It doesn't even begin to address racism and other problems in America, but at least it casts light on sexual discrimination. Nevertheless, there are many things to be happy about... if we look and notice them.
  

 

An angry "war mentality" that says we have to destroy aggressors makes us aggressors. And if we become aggressors to oppose other aggressors, only aggression wins. There is a better way to improve things; there are many better ways to improve things.