Do we still need a special day to call the attention of the world to the fact that women are equal partners?
By Heidi Trautmann
Yes, we do. As long as women are mistreated by men, unfairly treated by society, we do need an occasion to show presence and solidarity, to show women around the world that they are not alone, that the traditional ways of thinking in society should be revised.
The movement is now just over 100 years old and started early last century in America to promote equal rights for women, to be given the right to vote, to hold public office and fight against sex discrimination. In 1911, for the first time, millions of women also marched in the streets of many countries of Europe. It moved from there to Communist Russia and even China in 1922, then it was introduced by the Spanish communists in 1936 and in 1949 the day of March 8 was proclaimed as Women’s Day in China. In the Western world March 8 was made official in 1977 by the United Nations General Assembly as the UN Day for women’s rights and world peace. Is it not remarkable that world peace is being connected to women?
On its 100th anniversary on March 8, 2011, many events took place in more than 100 countries….and here I recite some special historical events I found mentioned in the internet:…
“In the United States, President Barack Obama proclaimed March 2011 to be "Women's History Month", calling Americans to mark IWD (International Women’s Day) by reflecting on "the extraordinary accomplishments of women" in shaping the country's history. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched the "100 Women Initiative: Empowering Women and Girls through International Exchanges", on the eve of IWD. In the run-up to 2011 International Women's Day, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on States and other entities not to relent in their efforts to prevent rape and other forms of sexual violence that harm the lives and dignity of countless women in conflict zones around the world every year. In Pakistan, Punjab Govt. Project Gender Reform Action Plan, District Gujranwala celebrated this day in large scale in the Gift University Gujranwala. Mrs. Shazia Ashfaq Mattu, MPA and GRAP officer Mr. Dr. Yasir Nawaz Manj organized the events in very effective manners. Australia issued a 100th anniversary commemorative coin”…and so on and so forth.
The solidarity shown on this special day has given hope and strength to women in countries where, due to laws men have set up, women have no rights and are reduced to reproduction machines and have to endure physical and verbal brutality by their so-called ‘masters’ and by religious dictations.
I wonder, do men hate women so much that they take refuge to brutality to show their superiority? It is perversity to beat up the physically weaker sex, they are scared that women would win the upper hand. Listen, when you cannot reason with your partner verbally you must not rise your fist to finish any arguments.
On February 14 this year women went onto the streets worldwide, also massively in Cyprus, called to rise for V Day, to end violence against women and girls, against rape, incest and verbal abuse. Just enter the website of this activists’ movement ‘A billion Rising’ and see people dance for freedom of slavery in film shows of activities worldwide. Amazing!
Alone during the last years we have heard of so many tragic misdeeds, be it during the Mediterranean freedom fights when soldiers and police were raping women, for example in Egypt, in India six young men were raping a young woman to death, other women being stoned by men, women injured by acids thrown into their face, young girls abducted and kept prisoner for many years mostly by relatives. What is it that makes men do this to women? I have been reading biographies of women in Saudi Arabia who have suffered the most horrible tortures because they have dared to oppose the dictation of a father or husband.
In many Western countries things have changed; alas, we have now more and more singles living by themselves because they don’t find a way to each other, cannot make a fair compromise which is the opposite meaning of what millions of women fought for. I won’t say that women are always right, some do use men in any possible way except applying physical brutality. There are many men and women who turn to their own sex to live together, because they feel better understood.
There are changes underway, I can tell you, men beware! Again the news come from America. Hanna Rosin, a journalist and senior editor of The Atlantic. She says we are at a turning point of history. She says so in her new book “The End of Men – and the Rise of Women” for which she has done intensive research work and she gives an explosive argument for why women are winning the battle of the sexes and why men are no longer top dog.
“…..In 2010, for the first time, the balance of the British workforce tipped towards women, who now hold around half of the nation's jobs. In the US, meanwhile, for every two men that receive a BA, three women will achieve the same. Not only do women dominate colleges and professional schools on every continent except Africa, young single women earn more than men in the US, and more than a third of mothers in the UK and the US are their family's main breadwinner. The tides have turned. The 'age of testosterone' is decisively over. At almost every level of society women are proving themselves far more adaptable and suited to a job market that rewards people skills and intelligence, and a world that has a dramatically diminishing need for traditional male muscle….”. A new matriarchy?
Men who have read this book are deeply disturbed, this is not fiction, it is reality. I don’t think that women want to have the absolute power, they still want to be equal partners and I remember the words of my friend Neriman Cahit: “We women don’t want to go behind or in front of our men, we want to go beside them.”