International Women's Day

Thousands of events are being held around the world to celebrate International Women’s Day, an idea that was launched 100 years ago when a group of women from seventeen countries gathered in Copenhagen, Denmark to champion the rights of women. Activists across the globe are drawing attention to a variety of concerns, including discriminatory laws, the high rate of pregnancy-related deaths in many parts of the world, the skewed sex ratio in China and India, the disproportionately high number of women who are killed and victimized by wars, the comparatively heavier burden of poverty on women, and the continuing disparity between men and women in terms of the quality of available employment and wages received.
[Democracy Now!]


Yes, a hundred years of women's rights, but still it seems as though we haven't come very far.  Women in the United States are getting paid less than men for the same work, even if they are more educated and more experienced.  How do you explain this?  Many men seem to despise women competing for 'their' jobs.  Women are either bitches or bimbos.  Guess which ones men prefer...  Hillary v.s. Palin...


There is so much more work to be done.  But there are good signs too.  I worked at a Habitat for Humanity construction site last week, and to my pleasant surprise there were more women volunteers than men wearing a hard hat and ready to get dirty.  Women outnumbered even the site supervisors.   


Last night a woman won the best director oscar for the first time.  For a war movie.  Well, that is a huge accomplishment and I loved that fact that Barbra Streisand announced it.


Go girrrls!

--- T