So this day which is yearly acknoledged, is here once again. March 8th: International Women’s Day. We celebrate it because women are so often not celebrated. In fact, they are the most oppressed group on earth.
Why women?
Women are 1/2 the population of the world.
Women are sold, bought and used. In homes, in pornography, prostitution, slavery. We are in demand. Not the true us, but our bodies are abused for pleasure. Because 80% of trafficking victims are women or children.
2/3s of the poorest people in the world are women.
Of the causalities of modern war, 75% are women and children.
Who are refugees? 80% are women and children!
Over 70% of human trafficking victims are women.
Although women produce 60% of the world’s food, they only earn 10% of the world’s income and less than 2% of the world’s land.
Yes. Women. Women are missing. In Asia, many girls are killed before birth, killed after birth, are not treated for sickness, are not given a chance to survive.
More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.
Girls are often kept from education, over 101 million children are not able to go to school. International research shows that the best way to change the world is to empower women through education.
The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day… life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west.
Ideas for Action:
Doing:
Tomorrow Kiva will launch Kiva.org/women. Because they partnered with another company, you can try out giving a $25 loan for the first time for free! Super cool!
Sevenly.com, one of my favorite T-shirt making people, are donating $7 from each of their shirts to Kiva, which is super cool. This week their shirts are going to help abused women.
Make a cool international e-card to thank a woman in your life through Oxfam by clicking here.
Buy a birthing kit, ensuring a woman a safe delivery of her baby with International Rescue Committee.
Support Helping Women Survivors to help women get on their feet after war/conflict.
Or Support 146 Love. Also consider forming or connecting with a Human Trafficking Task Force involved with 146 Love to help end exploitation of women and girls due to Human/Sex Trafficking.
Learning:
Look through these posts:
The World Where Women Live: Dangerous Places to Be Female
My thoughts on not being a Feminist: International Women’s Day 2010
Take a Quiz about a girl in Africa.
If you want to read a lot more check out these books:
A Thousand Splendid Suns – by far my favorite about being a woman in a world far from mine. This novel follows two women throughout the years in Afghanistan.
Or for a non-fiction very amazing book revealing the plight of women look at Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (Vintage)
These books are SO worth reading! So check them out!
Being:
Consider women in your life that make a difference to you. Who inspired you? Nurtured you? Delighted in you? Empowered you? Pray for them and thank them. Remember that God created women like these all across the world. These are amazing people, who reflect God’s nature just by being. What does it tell you about God that He made women? To me, it says a lot.
Women ARE valued!
So why doesn’t the state of our world reflect that? How are you inspired to change this?
References:
http://www.internationalwomensday.com
http://www.care.org/campaigns/powerwithin/index.asp?loc=home_FFP2
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