Women have been fighting for equal rights since the beginning of time. Revolutionary liberation movements have happened worldwide, not just in North America.
In 1910, at the second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed that women use a particular day each year to press for their demands. International Women’s Day, March 8, was the result.
Now, 89 years later, women are still struggling for equal pay, equal opportunities and equal respect to that of men.
Is it not odd that after nearly a century, the wheels are still spinning in place, moving only inches every year? I do not intend to disgrace my foremothers who have worked for the changes of which I am lucky enough to be a part of in North America today. But this year’s coverage and celebrations of the day were minimal and disappointing.
X Press had no qualms about featuring a front-page photo illustration of a business woman wearing a tie that was made to look like a penis. Inside that March 4 issue, the same woman is wearing an apron while cutting up a detached male penis on a cutting board. This was supposed to be a celebration of women’s independence and strength? Strong women feminists are NOT man-hating castrators.
This stereotype needs to stop. It trivializes the women’s movement and does not encourage growth; in fact, it sets us back another 20 years.
A feminist does not need a man to feel complete, nor does she need to cut him down — that’s nothing but reverse discrimination.
I am not alone in noticing this horrific coverage in X Press, as another woman’s letter-to-the- editor was published in Capital City March 11. However, Capital City’s coverage wasn’t much better, as only nine short lines mentioned the celebration of International Women’s Day.
Chapters bookstore on Rideau Street featured an information session and poetry reading with “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” as the theme. Both women’s reproductive rights and violence against women were discussed. Who doesn’t know that women are physically, sexually and emotionally abused every day around the globe?
This is a well-known fact. It is not a hidden secret suddenly discovered. Yes, innocent women are being abused — but what has actually been done by the government to stop it? And what have we done to stop it?
We’ve been mulling over the same realizations for eight decades, so let’s move on, take action and make change. Then we will have something to celebrate, and maybe even our own column to say it in.
Musicians’ group finds strength in numbers