International Women’s Day: What if…

Icons photo by Max Dashu

Happy International Women’s Day ladies.

What if, for just one day, every single woman on the planet did absolutely nothing?

What if, for just one day, we lay down all our “tools,” just sat down, stretched our legs and watched the world run by men?

I think it would sound and look like Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai with no cars. I think the world would stop!

With a world population of 7 billion on October 31, 2011, according to the United Nations  -- or 3 487 869 males and 3 439 427 037 females according to a 2011 estimate by the worldstat info -- I would love to see that happen.

Despite the number of men and women in the world being roughly equal -- men hold a slight lead with 102 men for 100 women (in 2010, as stated by French National Institute for Demographic Studies) -- women’s equality is still unequal.

International Women’s Day (IWD), celebrated today and throughout March, is under the theme Inspiring Change. Equality For Women Is Progress For All is the United Nations’ theme this year.

“Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable. Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all,” says UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Inspiring Change encourages advocacy for women's advancement everywhere in every way. It calls for challenging the status quo for women's equality and vigilance inspiring positive change.

With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think we have gained true equality. Unfortunately, women are still not paid equally, we still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

Violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread violations of human rights. A 2013 WHO global study shows that 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence.

I have a firm belief that education can win us the future. Cultural, social and political benefits can be translated into society through education. The first step on the long road to equal opportunities and development has to be through education.

It is sad that parts of the human race have not yet learned men and women can be partners. It is sad and repulsive that many men still need to show their superiority through violence and rape.

Women’s rights as human beings are non-negotiable.

Today, on Women’s Day, as I do most days, I thank the women in my life for being who they are, for guiding me and for shining a light on me.

Working at IF Boutique, a ladies’ store, I meet so many women on a daily basis. Every one of them adds something special to my day.

But most of all, thanks go to Maya for being the rock that has sheltered my billowing sand in the difficult times I am going through.

Although my mom Vicky has been gone for 22 years, thanks are always due to her for being the strong, intelligent and outspoken women that she was. She taught me to have a voice but to be tolerant, understanding and without prejudice. Mom had class, insight, wisdom, courage and humor -- in health and in sickness -- until her last hours. Vicky remains my reference for a great woman.

On this special day, I equally give thanks and celebrate the men in my life who have helped and continue to help and support me. I especially thank fellow blogger ArabSaga, who for the past 40 year has walked every step of the way with me and who is now fighting the demon and hell of cancer.

We are preordained to be a team – women and men. There’s no escape.

Let’s walk life hand in hand and celebrate Human's Day, with no need to qualify the gender…

Related International Women’s Day posts:

March 8: Women's rights non-negotiable -- March 8, 2013

March 8: Education can win the future -- March 6, 2012

The women in my life -- March 8, 2011

Dearest Mom… -- 21 March 2011

When the Lebanese woman shed the veil

Guest post by veteran Middle East publisher F. Najia 

There is no denying that the Lebanese woman’s journey from the extreme repression of  “the age of the veil” and the relative freedom of “the age of the bikini” was a fairly quick one. But the Lebanese woman’s path to the measure of freedom she has attained today was paved not by “circumstances” alone, but by the Lebanese woman herself, and roses were by no means strewn along that path.

To appreciate this achievement on this International Women’s Day Centenary, look back to the days, almost a century ago, when Sitt Anbara, sister of late Lebanese prime minister Saeb Salam, and widow of the late Palestinian educator Ahmad Samih al-Khalidy, was the first woman to take off her veil in public.

A grand dame in every sense of the word and recognized as one of the pioneers of women’s liberation in Lebanon, Sitt Anbara talked in 1973 to one of my staff reporters in Monday Morning (the English-language weekly magazine I founded in Beirut the previous year) about those early days of women’s repression:

“I went about without the veil until the age of 10, when social pressure imposed it on me. I never got used to the idea. The veil was like an iron curtain that totally blocked my vision.

“In 1917, the Moslem Girls’ Club was founded. I was the President, and Committee members included Ibtihaj Kaddoura (1893-1967), Adela Beyhum, Amna Hamza, Wadad Mahmassani, and Wahida al-Khalidy. The Club sponsored many cultural activities, which were attended by married and single women – all veiled. We promoted liberal ideas and tried to inject thoughts of freedom and independence into the minds of Lebanon’s Moslem women. The man who encouraged us most in our endeavors in those days was Mukhtar Beyhum, who was all for women’s emancipation and the dropping of the veil.

Anbara Salam Khalidy

“In those days, I was greatly influenced by the writings of Kassem Amin, the well-known Egyptian writer who devoted most of his work to the emancipation of women and the dropping of the veil. I cannot remember how his bold works came into my possession, but they did, and they influenced me tremendously. I was further, and perhaps more, influenced by my travels to Europe – to England in particular. I went there in the twenties, and I would say that that trip had a lot to do with the shaping of my character. My father was with me, and when I got to Marseilles, I removed the veil and the scarf, and it was an exhilarating feeling.

“In England in those days, the suffragettes were active, and I could not help but compare between the British woman (demanding political rights and her right to serve in government functions) and the Lebanese Arab woman (still grappling with the veil). Why, I asked myself, can’t we be like them? Why do we have to remain so painfully marginal in our country’s national life?

“Back in Beirut, in February 1928, the society for Women’s Awakening invited me to deliver a talk on my impressions about England. I accepted, and decided to give my lecture meaningful impact, not so much by its content but by my appearance: I decided to appear in public without a veil – an action as yet unheard of in Lebanese Moslem society. I talked it over with my father, telling him of my belief that the veil was the greatest single bastion of fanaticism and nonsensical tradition in Lebanon. My father left the decision up to me, and I decided to go ahead with my plan. I appeared without a veil, and I can still remember the wave of criticism that followed. I was 28 years old then, and still unmarried, which was not at all ‘as it should be’, so people started talking about ‘the daughter of the za’im (leader) who unveiled herself in public because she wanted to get married’.

“The fact is that many had asked for my hand in marriage, but I had refused over and over again, insisting that before I married anyone, I had to meet him, talk to him, get to know him, find out if I wanted him as a husband. I met the man of my choice through Julia Tohme Dimashkiya (one of the first Christian women in Lebanon to marry into a Moslem family). She introduced me to Ahmad al-Khalidy, and I was impressed with his knowledge, his poise, his conversation. My family knew I was seeing Ahmad, and they did not object. I did not hesitate to accept when he proposed.”

Dr. Saniya Habboub

Another early attack on the veil and everything it implied was not as frontal and direct as Sitt Anbara’s.

Reminiscing about those, Dr. Saniya Habboub told the same reporter:

“I was brought up in a Moslem home. My father was Mustapha Habboub, a Lebanese leather merchant, and my mother was Adla al-Jazairy, an illiterate Turkish woman. My future was probably decided in a train from Istanbul to Beirut, before I was born. My mother, still a bride, was in one of the women’s compartments, and there she saw a European woman reading a newspaper. The sight so impressed her that she told my father that very night that if ever God gave them a daughter, she wanted her to be educated, so that she could read newspapers.

“And that is how I went to school. I received my high school degree from ASG and went on to Junior College. In 1925, I became an irregular student at the American University of Beirut (AUB), running from class to class with my three-layer veil on. I used to go to class before my classmates came and leave after they were well gone. I talked to no one but my professors. In Basta, where I lived, people used to spit at me when they saw me in the street and curse my father and mother for their improper upbringing of their daughter. My parents tolerated all that, and kept sending me to school. They gave me everything I needed. They were determined to educate me.

“In 1926, I completed my sophomore year, and then my problems really started. A girl in the School of Medicine was unheard of, and nothing I did could change that rule. So I decided to get my medical education in the United States. A friend of mine had told me that someone in Damascus had studied medicine in America and had come back to open a clinic in Damascus, and I thought that the first step should be a visit to that doctor to enquire about the United States and the possibility of my going there. I went down to Bourj, quite alone, protected by my veil, and hired a car that took me to Damascus. I knew nobody in that city and had no relatives with whom I could stay, so I had to go to a hotel. I will never forget the look the hotel clerk gave me when I walked in and asked for a single room. He gave me the key, and I walked up to my room as coldly as I could. I was petrified. Once in my room, I moved every movable piece of furniture in it up against the door, and having thus done all I could to discourage visitors, I sat on my bed in my nightgown all night, too frightened to sleep.

“The next morning, I visited the doctor I had come to see and, ignoring his surprise at my enquiries, got the information I needed. When I left him, I was more convinced than ever that the United States was where I should go.

“On Thursday, August 11, 1926, my ship left Beirut. On the day I arrived in Marseilles, I took off my veil in public for the first time since my childhood. It was an electrifying experience. If I were to strip naked and walk out into the streets now, I would not feel what I felt then. The experience shook me so much. I felt weak and almost fainted.

“I went on to the United States, and received my MD from the University of Pennsylvania on May 11, 1931. It took me two more years to specialize in obstetrics. All through that time, I made my family live every one of my experiences, writing them two letters a day.

“In 1933, I returned to Beirut and rented a four-room clinic in Bab Edriss. Clients started streaming in before I had time to put up the curtains. I was so successful that I eventually bought the clinic and the building it was in.

“A lot of my clients took me for a midwife at first, but the point is they came – the entire population of Basta came, and I worked around the clock. My acceptance by the Basta society on such a scale encouraged other girls to seek more education and prefer it to early marriage.

“Education and determination – these are the keys to women’s progress.”

The women in my life

The world today marks International Women's Day under the theme “Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women.”

I should know! I’ve been looking for different work long enough!

The struggle by women has gained momentum over the past 100 years. In 1910, at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin (leader of the “Women's Office” for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day -- a Women's Day -- to press for their demands. The conference of 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, unanimously greeted Zetkin's suggestion. The result was International Women's Day.

Mich at the Copenhagen chapter of the 1977 UN event

It was not until 1975, during International Women's Year, that the United Nations began celebrating March 8 as International Women’s Day (IWD). Two years later, in December 1977, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in keeping with their historical and national traditions.

In adopting its resolution on observing Women's Day, the General Assembly cited two reasons: (1) to recognize the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women, and (2) to recognize the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security.

IWD is an occasion to look back at how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilize for change.

After doing some research before writing this post about what International Women’s Day meant to me, my thoughts always returned to background, upbringing, family and education.

I am lucky to have been born into a family where there was no gender prejudice and education was encouraged. Professionally, I have been blessed. Since my first job, I have worked for and with someone who believes in women in the workplace and gave me my first brake in journalism in the 1970s, when women reporters were still a rare breed.

So instead of celebrating the innumerable admirable women around the world who have achieved so much over the years, I would like to cheer and thank those women who are part of my life and have enriched it in so many ways. They are:

With mum Vicky in 1983

My mum Vicky: For being the strong, intelligent and outspoken women that she was. She taught me to have a voice but to be tolerant, understanding and without prejudice. Mom had class, insight, wisdom, courage and humor -- in health and in sickness -- until her last hours. Vicky is still my reference for a great woman, however much I look for one on Google!

My sister Asma: Where to start… She is the voice in my head, my guide, my security blanket, a role model for courage and perseverance, but also for fun and family values. She is someone who works so hard that it puts me and so many others to shame. (See “A tribute to breast cancer survivors,” 1 October 2010)

My friend Zepure: My soulmate, my harbor… (See “Soulmates for life,” 2 November 2010)

My cousin Lillian: For taking over the leadership of the women in the family and being my refuge and cheerleader.

My sister-in-law Sally: For bringing up two wonderful children and then going back to university and becoming a Social Services professional. I continuously admire her courage and determination.

My niece Emma: Although I still think of her as a “little girl,” she has blossomed into a smart, warm, loving and hardworking woman and is successfully climbing the corporate ladder. It helps that, like me, she also supports Chelsea Football Club! (See "Emma's star," 20 August 2010)

I thank you ladies for being who you are and for shining a light on my life.

I also celebrate the talented women I have met in the past year through Social Media platforms Twitter and Facebook. There would be so many to name, but they have also changed my life and taught me so many things, including blogging!

While women have seen significant change and emancipation, there is still a long way to go: 

• Economic Security: Women perform two-thirds of the world’s work and produce half the world’s food, but earn just 10% of the income and own 1% of the property. (Source: WfWI)
•  Education: Women make up two-thirds of the world’s 800 million illiterate adults (aged 15 and over). Educate a girl in Africa and she’ll earn 25% more income, be three times less likely to contract HIV or AIDS and have a smaller, healthier family. (Sources: Camfed USA) 
•  Equality and leadership: Only 28 countries have achieved the 30% target set in the early 1990s for women in decision-making positions. Worldwide, women are paid 17% less, and have less employment security than men. (Source: UNWOMEN) 
•  Health: 99% of maternal deaths are preventable, but every minute a woman dies from pregnancy-related causes. Worldwide, young women (15-24) are 1.6 times as likely as young men to be HIV positive. Every 14 seconds, another child becomes an orphan because of AIDS-related deaths. (Sources: International Organization for Women Foundation) 
•  Safety and Security: The abuse of women and girls is endemic around the world. One in three women will be raped, beaten, forced into sex or violated in her lifetime. (Source: UNIFEM)

So, let’s make everyday International Women's Day. Let’s try to do whatever we can to ensure the future for women is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

And along the way let’s not forget to give thanks and celebrate the men in our lives who help realize these goals.