International Women’s Day

“Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”− Charlotte Whitton

This Friday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. Every year, all around the world, International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8, since the early 1900’s.
And though respect for women has come a long way from the days when women were confined to only domestic duty, it’s still proof that we still have a long way to go if there still needs to be a massive global event to remind the world of the achievements of the great women in society.
We need to reach the point where we don’t need to have events like International Women’s Day to remind women that they can achieve greatness. Women should never question or be questioned whether they deserve to be educated, to have jobs, to make their own decisions.
Queen’s College, the premier secondary school in Guyana, has a population of mostly girls. We out-performed the boys at Common Entrance or NGSA, to earn a place at QC. But even after all of that, when we’re done with school and ready to have jobs, we’ll be working in a ‘man’s world’. A world where women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts.
A world where women have to work doubly hard: first do their job, and simultaneously work to prove to the doubters that they’re good enough to deserve to be where they are.
But we’ve come a long way. Women can vote now. Women attend college. There are female doctors, astrophysicists, astronauts.
The feminists of the 1970’s era made great strides towards shifting society’s attitude towards women’s equality. But unfortunately, now, years later, when many of the big battles have already been won by the feminists of old, younger women take some of the rights that they have now for granted. They truly believe that they owe nothing to feminism. And we’ve begun to backslide.
On TV, in movies, on social networking sites, there’s just so much exposure, so many females dressing ‘provocatively’. I mean sure, you can wear whatever you like, that’s the point, equal rights and all of that. But why do they choose those particular pieces of clothes? Mostly to appeal to males. So the male gaze still dictates what females wear, or in most cases, not wear.
Women might have the right to vote. They might be elected president. But how many are? Why? They might make brilliant discoveries.
But what women really need, and what all the battles have essentially been all about, is respect. Women need to be respected. They deserve to be respected. But first, they need to start respecting themselves.
Dress however you like, you have that freedom, but always think about your reasons for dressing the way you do. Because in the long run, respect is worth a whole lot more than a couple of opportunities to wear skimpy clothes. We have to be seen as more than ‘meat’.
So until women are accepted for the great things that they do every day, until they are respected every day, we need to march in the streets for International Women’s Day. Women deserve more than one day of the year to be appreciated, so let’s remind the world on Friday, and on every other day of the year.
Because women, they house babies within them for nine months, they basically create life. Every one of us has a mother, even males, the ones who ‘run the world’. The all-powerful males with their air of superiority need to remember something – their mothers could’ve had abortions. Their mother – A WOMAN – made the decision to keep them. A woman, decided to keep them in their womb for nine months, to put up with morning sickness and all the torture of childbirth for them. So what kind of a repayment to their mothers is it when those same boys grow up to treat women as being lesser to them?