What does IWD mean to you?
INTERNATIONAL Women’s Day (IWD), celebrated worldwide yesterday, signified a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change, and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.
In keeping with this year’s theme, ‘Empowering women — empowering humanity: Picture it!’, three women’s advocates share what IWD means to them.
Justine Harrison, communications officer, WROC
IWD allows us to recognise and celebrate the phenomenal contributions of women in society while standing in solidarity for and raising awareness of the many pressing issues affecting us across the world.
Women comprise 51 per cent of the Jamaican population and so IWD is rather fitting and significant as it is certainly exciting to know that all around the world people paused for a day to spotlight women and girls. Being female to me is synonymous with fierce confidence, big courage, unrelenting strength, quiet power and vivacious energy, and so I am truly happy and proud to celebrate women and girls under the global theme.
Dr Adwoa Onuora, lecturer, Institute for Gender and Development Studies, UWI
African women have and continue to play significant roles as leaders advocating on behalf of men and women both inside and outside their communities. IWD is for me a day to pay tribute to our ancestor warrior women who were tortured, raped and killed in defending our right to exist as human beings. It is a day to remember stalwart sisters in the struggle who remained undaunted in the face of insurmountable challenges and who paved the way for a younger generation of women like myself. It is a day to highlight, reflect on and share stories of resistance to systems of classism, racism, imperialism, ableism, sexism and homophobia. It is for me the day we collectively gather in the diversity of our sisterhood to acknowledge our historical and contemporary struggles for improved social, economic, and political conditions. As a mother raising an African female child, IWD carries for me deep symbolic significance. It offers hope that one day because of women’s global advocacy, she will live in a world of heightened gender awareness, where she is no longer relegated to the realm of sub-personhood. IWD represents hope that one day, my daughter and all the daughters of the world will see their rights and full potential recognised globally.
Ayesha Constable, youth advocate, Young Women’s Leadership Initiative
Women continue to make significant strides to change their lot and advance gender equity. They continue to challenge patriarchy and to close the gender gap in education, industry and politics. IWD is an opportunity to celebrate these strides and successes.
Despite the many real and perceived gains, many of our sisters continue to struggle to have their voices heard. IWD is therefore also a day of advocacy — when we bring attention to the inequalities that still exist. It is a day on which we amplify the calls for gender justice in all parts of the world where women continue to be denied access to proper reproductive health care, the right to choose the person they marry and the right to an education. So IWD is a day of solidarity when we get together and strategise to advance the cause. IWD is a day when women laugh and cry together, empower and affirm each other in celebration of being women.
