Women’s Day!

International Women’s Day was last Thursday, the 8th of March.  All across the world people celebrated the day.  Worldwide, there are rallies and women get a day off from work.  Many of my friends from around the world wished me a “Happy Women’s Day!”

An LA Times article stated that other countries celebrate Women’s Day even more than the United States. For example, the United Kingdom has about 450 events for Women’s Day, while the U.S. has about 253 events, according to the official International Women’s Day website. Oh, and, I also learned that women in Afghanistan received their own internet cafe.

A "Happy Women's Day" Card I got from an international friend!

Though it is a day to celebrate womanhood and the advances that women have made over the years, it is also important to reflect how far women still have to go to gain equality.

In a Women and Development class that I am taking at Wellesley, we were assigned a book by Susan Bourque and Kay Warren, “Women of the Andes.”  The book compares the social influence, or power, that various women in the Andes region have. Discussing some points brought up in the book, my classmates and I started questioning how much development really provided benefits to these rural women and discovered there is no right answer to that question.

Though development can give women better working conditions and a sense of empowerment, they are still exploited and barred from various jobs. Where in the past, at least they could barter for their livelihood with other good or livestock…now they are constrained by money. This makes me question, how much has women’s status in society actually improved?  What are the right steps to improve women’s situation internationally; especially in rural, developing areas?

I think a lot of the problem stems from the fact that there is a male bias in our histories.  If men, historically, are taught that they should be doing this “manly” work and know their male ancestors did it in the past, then they have no incentive to change.  Gender schemas will continue to persist.

We need to find a way to change the way we think about women historically.  Women’s histories need to be included in our textbooks and celebrated as equally important as well. If girls and teens hear historical accounts of women in their culture’s past, they are more likely to see themselves as also significant.

In conclusion, there is still a long way to go for women.  And even though I am glad women get a day to celebrate, I wish that we could say that every day was Women’s Day.

P.S. Do you think development is better for women in developing countries? Should we include stories of women’s histories in our history textbooks? Or are they just not as important as learning about the men who had most of the roles of authority?