Happy International Women’s Day!!!

I want to take this moment to reflect and recognize this very important day for women worldwide. Today (Yesterday), women around the world celebrated the achievements they have made in their struggle for power and recognition that has been waged for hundreds of years. In South America, we witnessed a change and attitudinal shift in both women’s and society’s thoughts about women’s equality and emancipation. In Argentina, the people spoke and elected Cristina Fernández de Kirchner making her the first woman to be elected president in Argentina’s history. In 2006, in Chile, Michelle Bachelet became the first woman president. And in Africa, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made history by becoming Africa’s first elected female head of state and Liberia’s first elected female president. Fernández de Kirchner, Bachelet, Johnson Sirleaf and millions of women like them in many parts of the world have begun celebrating a new song of power, liberty, and justice.

However, the harsh realities in the day-to-day struggles of women can never be minimized or overlooked. Violence affects the lives of millions of women worldwide. It continues to be a global epidemic that kills, tortures, and maims – physically, psychologically, sexually and economically. In Pakistan, the year ended with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The death of “The Rose of Pakistan” marked a dark day in Pakistan’s history.

Recently, it was reported that a young mother in London was drugged, repeatedly raped for hours in front of her screaming children. The horrible ordeal was later posted on YouTube for the world to see. The three-minute clip of her ordeal was later removed from YouTube after a local reporter complained about its graphic nature. And we must not forget, Megan Meier, the 13 year-old girl who hung herself last year after being bullied on MySpace.

I had a hard time writing this post because I wanted to do this post justice. I wanted to express how grateful I am not only to my mother and my sister, but also to all of the women who have touched my life personally and professionally. As I was looking up the links I wanted to up for this post, I happen to come across this power picture on a post about International Women’s Day, by Adil Najam from All Things Pakistan. She was moved by the photo because “[t]here is both dignity and determination in the posture of this young woman as she tries to cross the road.” I couldn’t agree more!

After reading his post, it gave me pause to reflect on current state of affairs in this country and how sexist, misogynist, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving can still seen in the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by a system dominated by patriarchy. Najam wrote:

For me, here is a woman who is not waiting for someone to ‘help’ her cross the road. She is not demanding any special treatment. Not waiting for assistance. Not invoking the chuvinism of the men around her. She is ready, prepared, even eager, to overcome whatever hurdles come in her way.

While there are some who feel the only way we can move towards a society that is color-blind, rational, humanist place where a common good will overpower narrow self-interest choosing to live in the past or move forward for a better future. The truth is, the only way this can come about is not only having the willingness to listen and the willingness to bring down the current power structure.

I was reminded of a passage from Paolo Friere’s classic Pedagogy of the Oppressed:

The oppressor is in solidarity with the oppressed only when he stops regarding the oppressed as an abstract category and sees them as persons who have been unjustly dealt with, deprived of their voice, cheated in the sale of their labor – when he stops making pious, sentimental, and individualistic gestures and risks an act of love. True solidarity is found only in the plenitude of this act of love… To affirm that men and women are persons and as persons should be free, and yet to do nothing tangible to make this affirmation a reality, is a farce.

Such “acts of love” are possible. Being Latino, not only do I have an insight in identifying racist behavior taking place within the Latina/o community but also, I am also able to identify the subtle sexist behavior that also takes place because, as a male, I understand the male privilege that has been given to me by society’s patriarchal rules. Although there are some who assume by not being involved in the oppression of women that should be enough, but the reality is, that is nothing more but passivity. As bell hooks once said, “if we don’t change our own consciousness, we cannot change our own actions or demand change from others.”

Happy International Womens Day.

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Tags: benazir bhutto, ellen johnson sirleaf, international women, michelle bachelet, misogynist, patriarchy, president fernández, woman president |  Print This Post |
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