International Women Day – celebrated around the world on March 8. The date was ensued based on several luminous historical events siphoned by women. Click and learn everything about the women’s movements that transformed female entities today.
It was just another day – March 8, 2020 – Sunday. I wake up to an outflow of WhatsApp messages (mostly from my male family members, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances), wishing me or sharing “Happy Women’s Day!” forwards!
So, I start my Sunday, like every other Sunday – taking my dogs up on the terrace for pooping and peeing. Return only to commence with my tea meditation ritual, while my husband – Jay – cleans the table and scrub the toilets.
“What plans for Women’s Day?” asks Jay. “Lobster for dinner?” (Which we get btw)
Working on my laptop while making breakfast – browsing through posts, tips, short films all created on the theme of Women – web series, videos about what women want…. hear her out… etc, etc. Instagram stories are amassed with celebs (who I follow) giving a shout out to the most important women in their lives and so on.
All the visual content propelled me to write a piece on Women’s Day. And I did start typing on Google Doc when I am stuffed with a bit of apple in my mouth by Jay – “Finish up with your breakfast and let’s start the finances for the month.”
That’s when it struck me – It’s Women’s Day every day for me. I have a partner who collaborates with me equally, doing the household chores and working together. It dawned on me further, women’s day for me is all about feeling liberated and not contradistinguished based on my gender by the most significant people in my life.
Women’s Day was when in Greece, 400 BC Agnodice became the first female gynecologist. In 1691 Sister For Juana Inés de la Crux in Mexico fought for women’s right to education. In Russia, 1860, Anna Filosofova started a community for women’s work, education, housing, safety and more.
Women’s Day was when Kate Sheppard of New Zealand in 1893 led the country’s women’s right to vote. It was the W-Day when Japan’s Raichō Hiratsuka started the women-led journal Seito when Doria Shafit from Egypt in 1951 also fought for women’s right to vote. It was women’s day when in 1951, Rosalind Franklin from the United Kingdom discovered the double-helix structure of our DNA through X-RAY diffraction.
Women’s Day was marked by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Rigoberta Menchú from Guatemala in 1960 in her fight for ethnographies-cultural reconciliation and indigenous people. The day was when in 1973, Queen of the Tennis Court – Billie Jean King fought and paved the way for equal pay in the US Open Tournament.
In 1992, Unity Dow became the first female high court judge in Botswana. It was Women’s Day when Vandana Shiva from India started her fight for women empowerment and eco-diversity education for farmers during the 90s in the country. When Ruvimbo Tsopodzi and Loveness Mudzuru in 2016, Zimbabwe fought and eradicated the archaic and arbitrary practice of child marriage.
And each day it is Women’s Day because there are Greta Thunberg, women-of-Shaheen-Bagh, Oprah Winfrey, Swara Bhaskar, Ellen DeGeneres, Malala Yousafzai, Taylor Swift, Indra Nooyi, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elizabeth Warren.
I end here because I need to do the taxes with Jay (We both are good with numbers – breaking the myth here!)