International Women’s Day

It’s inter­na­tional women’s day.

I’ve been dis­cuss­ing issues of body image with people this week, but one of the things this has made me remem­ber is how much we still have to do.

I want to take a moment to be thank­ful for what we have but also note what we still need to fix (I’ll come back to this post and add sources when I have a little more time).

• In this coun­try, every woman over 18 can vote, just like men can 
• In this coun­try, women have access to equal education 
• We have a cer­tain free­dom to act as we choose and not be judged for it 
• We still have access to abor­tion if we need it 
• We have paid par­ental leave

BUT:

• There are still more men in par­lia­ment than women 
• We’ve never had a female prime minister 
• Domestic viol­ence is still rife and the per­pet­rator is often not charged

On a world scale, it’s a lot worse:

• In the US, murder is the lead­ing cause of death for preg­nant women
• Women living under shar­i’a law in Iran and Nigeria still suffer ter­ribly, includ­ing being sen­tenced to death by ston­ing for get­ting preg­nant out­side mar­riage, even if they were raped, or being revenge-raped as ‘pun­ish­ment’ for their brother’s action in raping someone else (the logic of this one still hor­ri­fies me). 
• Women are still the poorest people in the world 
• Ortho­dox Jewish Women in Israel still need their hus­bands’ per­mis­sion for divorce. 
• Depend­ing on whose stat­ist­ics you listen to, one out of every four women will be sexu­ally abused in their life­time and every three minutes a woman is beaten in America.

I don’t have time today to write more. I have to go off on my Vespa to get a road­worthy and then meet a friend for lunch and try on a tuxedo because I’m going to be best man at his wed­ding. It makes me cry that I have these freedoms as a woman in this coun­try to live this life and do these things today, ride a motors­cooter, wear trousers, cross-dress with (almost) no deri­sion while others in the world still suffer. May I never forget my blessings.

Thank you to all the women who went before me and fought for this life. Thank you to my mother for everything you ever did for me, for telling me I could be who­ever I wanted to be and for buying me the train set as well as the kit­chen set when I asked for one for Cha­nukah and the other for my birth­day. I wish I could find a tran­script of Alix Olson’s “The Women Before Me” to post for you to read. See what I can do later today.

Rally today, 5pm, State Lib­rary Mel­bourne. See you there?