MARCH 8 is International Women’s Day.
Historically, this day has been observed since the early 1900’s — “a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies,” saysInternationalWomensDay.com.
“In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman’s Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on February 28, 1909. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913,” the website further narrates.
A second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen in 1910, where a woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tossed the idea of International Women’s Day, where every country will celebrate Women’s Day on the same day every year, in order to “press for their demands.”
Over 100 women from 17 countries “representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women’s Day was the result,” according to InternationalWomensDay.com.
“On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1913 following discussions, International Women’s Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Wommen’s Day ever since. In 1914 further women across Europe held rallies to campaign against the war and to express women’s solidarity,” it further noted.
Fast forward to the present.
Through new legislation, advocating for women’s rights seems to have progressed by leaps and bounds.
In America, Pres. Barack Obama signed an expanded and revitalized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) on Thursday, March 7.
After a year and a half, the measure was renewed. The revitalized VAWA also provides new protections for gay rights advocates and Native Americans.
“The law authorizes some $659 million a year over five years for programs that strengthen the criminal justice system’s response to crimes against women and some men, such as transitional housing, legal assistance, law enforcement training and hotlines. One element of this year’s renewal focuses on ways to reduce sexual assault on college campuses. It also reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, adds stalking to the list of crimes that make immigrants eligible for protection and authorizes programs to reduce the backlog in rape investigations,” Associated Press reported.
In the Philippines, Gabriela party-list representatives Luzviminda Ilagan and Emmerenciana de Jesus called on Filipino women to assert their rights, as most of them “remain hungry, poor and abused under the Aquino administration,” reports Philstar.com.
“The situation of Filipino women has never been more burdened with poverty. The assault on our rights has gone from bad to worse under the policy direction of the Aquino administration,” Ilagan said.
“More women are going hungry, are without jobs or livelihood and are being deprived of much needed healthcare services. Women do not feel even a pinch of the economic growth that President Aquino claims to have achieved for this country,” she added.
Meanwhile, Aurora representative and principal author of the comprehensive women’s rights law, Juan Edgardo Angara, is urging the Philippine government to implement Republic Act 9710 (Magna Carta of Women), emphasizing the need for the provision which guarantees equal employment opportunities for Filipino women.
“We don’t want the Magna Carta of Women added to the bonfire of dead laws. “We want it to be a living, breathing law, meaning well-implemented and fully operationalized. It should be a true testament to the power and talent of Filipinas,” he said.
“Despite the enactment of the Magna Carta of Women to address sexual discrimination in the workplace, the gender gap in employment rates and economic participation persists,” he added.
Partylist-group Akap Bata has also called on the Aquino administration to implement programs and policies for the protection of young girls from all types of abuse — particularly in conflict-hit areas.
Citing a recent UN report, Akap Bata pointed out how more girls are being hired as domestic helpers and being made to live away from home — making them susceptible to physical or psychological abuse and interrupted schooling.
On a positive and constructive note, Rina Jimenez-David says in her Philippine Daily Inquirer column: “It’s an interesting time to be a woman in the Philippines. While we do not now have a woman president, we do have a male President whose policies, appointments, public statements and behavior indicate the value he places on women as co-workers, advisers, role models-not to mention sisters and sweethearts. Such comfort and familiarity with women is all the more notable because PNoy doesn’t make much of it, and almost seems to take the presence of women in his Cabinet, in the Supreme Court and in the halls of Congress as natural and expected-though their numbers still fall short of equity. And taking his cue, the country has taken it all in stride. Could PNoy be in fact the Philippines’ first post-feminist President?”
Senators Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano also pointed out how Congress “has made significant progress in pushing for women’s agenda through legislation,” although Cayetano believes that much work still needs to be done to get to a national level.
Legarda also emphasized that several laws have been passed for the protection of women’s rights and well being: Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act, the Magna Carta of Women, and the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
Cayetano, on the other hand, cited the Reproductive Health Act and the repeal of an archaic provision in the Labor Code, which prohibits women from working at night.
While gender equality/women’s rights remain relevant issues in modern times, it is good to note the progress that women have made, in terms of career opportunities and individual development. They have definitely come a long way.
And while women aspire and continue their pursuit of dreams, they should keep in mind what Betty Friedan said in The Feminine Mystique: “The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.”
(AJPress)
