On the 8th of March 2015,
International Woman’s day was celebrated, a day where women across all nations,
races and even ages are celebrated for the achievements that they have made in
effort of bettering the lives of people especially young women. As a young
woman who also wants to make a difference in the world, this day not only means
celebrating the triumphs women have accomplished through the years but as well
as looking back at the struggles they had to go through as those very struggles are still residing within our society.
For some like myself that don’t quite know
the history behind this day, International Women’s day was first celebrated on
the 28th of February 1909 as it was first observed by the US under
the Socialist Party in honour of women who were involved the 1908 garment
workers’ strike against working conditions in New York. The day was established
in the Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen 1910 to “honour the
movement for women’s rights and to build support for achieving universal
suffrage for women”. The day also became a mechanism for the protests in WW1 in
1913 as well the “Bread and Peace” strike which was a backdrop against the war.
Upon reading this, not only did I realize
the amount of courage we as women possess but the amount of strength we possess
in solidarity. If you think about our generation of women today, too many of us
are in competition not with men but more so our fellow women. We see the next
woman as a competitor so we scrutinize, find fault and belittle her all in the
name of sounding and even being perceived as being better than her. SERIOUSLY?!!! I can’t tell you
how many times I've heard women call each other out on things as tedious as
gossip and men. Who told us that fighting one another would make us the
icons that we use to look up?
We now have young girls looking up to people like Kim Kardashian and Amber Rose who pose naked for fame and have twitter wars on who actually has a
shadier past. Were we really raised like that? Where are the Jane
Austens, Margret Fullers, Rosa Parks and even Eleanor Roosevelts of this
generation? Instead we’d rather compare twerking notes and the latest “side
chick” tips. We celebrate women and how far they have come in history
forgetting that as much as the war against gender inequality as well as issues regarding women is half won, WE as
the women of this generation need to fight even harder to carry on the legacy
that our mothers and grandmothers have paved.
Forget what the next women is doing, having
or even taking and instead BE the woman that makes other women step up their
game because “a woman who knows her worth doesn't measure herself against
another woman but stands strong, calm and self-confident”.
Here’s to the STRONG WOMEN: May we KNOW them, May we BE them and May we RAISE THEM.
