From Women Watch: Information and on Gender Equity and Empowerment of Women, March 8th, 2011.

 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/

"2011 year marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. The day was commemorated for the first time on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, following its establishment during the Socialist International meeting the prior year. More than one million women and men attended rallies on that first commemoration.

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating 8 March as International Women's Day. Two years later, in December 1977, the 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 accordance with their historical and national traditions."

 From the United Nation's Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon

Secretary-General's Message on International Women's Day
8 March 2011

"One hundred years ago, when the world first commemorated International Women’s Day, gender equality and women’s empowerment were largely radical ideas.  On this centenary, we celebrate the significant progress that has been achieved through determined advocacy, practical action and enlightened policy making.  Yet, in too many countries and societies, women remain second-class citizens. 

Although the gender gap in education is closing, there are wide differences within and across countries, and far too many girls are still denied schooling, leave prematurely or complete school with few skills and fewer opportunities.  Women and girls also continue to endure unacceptable discrimination and violence, often at the hand of intimate partners or relatives.  In the home and at school, in the workplace and in the community, being female too often means being vulnerable.  And in many conflict zones, sexual violence is deliberately and systematically used to intimidate women and whole communities.

My UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign, along with its Network of Men Leaders, is working to end impunity and change mindsets.  There is also growing international resolve to punish and prevent sexual aggression in conflict, and to do more to implement the Security Council’s landmark resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which highlights the importance of involving women in all aspects of building and keeping peace. 

Another area where we urgently need to see significant progress is on women’s and children’s health.  The September 2010 Summit on the Millennium Development Goals recognized the central importance of this issue, and Member States and the philanthropic community have pledged strong support for my global strategy to save lives and improve the health of women and children over the next four years.

In the realm of decision-making, more women, in more countries, are taking their rightful seat in parliament.  Yet fewer than 10 per cent of countries have female heads of state or government.  Even where women are prominent in politics, they are often severely under-represented in other areas of decision-making, including at the highest levels of business and industry.  A recent UN initiative – the Women’s Empowerment Principles, now embraced by more than 130 major corporations – aims to redress this imbalance.

This year’s observance of International Women’s Day focuses on equal access to education, training and science and technology.  Cell phones and the Internet, for example, can enable women to improve the health and well-being of their families, take advantage of income-earning opportunities, and protect themselves from exploitation and vulnerability.  Access to such tools, backed up by education and training, can help women to break the cycle of poverty, combat injustice and exercise their rights.

The launch this year of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women – UN Women – demonstrates our intent to deepen our pursuit of this agenda.  Only through women’s full and equal participation in all areas of public and private life can we hope to achieve the sustainable, peaceful and just society promised in the United Nations Charter."

Ban Ki-moon

The information below is from United Nations Women Watch page on International Women's Day 2011. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/iwd/

Theme for International Women's Day 2011:

Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women

• UN Women:
  Events around the world to commemorate International Women’s Day, organized and co-sponsored by UN Women
• United Nations in Geneva
  Celebrating the 100 anniversary of International Women's Day with the UN in Geneva (Download PDF flyer)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) :
  Launch of the 2010-11 edition of The State of Food and Agriculture report: Closing the gender gap in agriculture (View live webcast)
• International Labour Organization (ILO):
  ILO celebrates International Women's Day
• ILO and UN Women: 
  Award Ceremony on prevention of sexual harassment in the workplace(Download PDF flyer)
• International Telecommunication Union (ITU):
  High-level debate: Goodbye to the IT girl: Why are young women deserting technology?
• United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD):
  Panel discussion on enhancing women´s access to education, science and technology for economic growth and development
• United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP): 
  Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day(Download PDF flyer)
• United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):
  UNESCO celebrates International Women's Day 2011 (Download PDF Brochure) 
  Launch of the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2011 "The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education" (View live webcast) 
  UNESCO launches Women Make the News 2011
• World Health Organization (WHO):
  100th anniversary of International Women's Day
• United Nations lnformation Service (UNIS) Vienna:
  Panel discussion on "100 Years International Women’s Day: Time to celebrate? Achievements and Prospects" (Download PDF flyer)
• United Nations Regional lnformation Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC):
  International Women's Day Event in Brussels

 Below is a re-post from last year that I featured on Open Salon. What a hideous difference a year has made, attacks on labor, women's reproductive rights, economic inequality and so much more has haunted us and yet still we stand, fighting it all, pushing it back, as each of us tries to save the world for our children.  

 ~

 I fear that progress is too slow for gender equity in this country and worse for women who live elsewhere. 

Women Students at Ohio State University in 1910

This is International Women’s Day. What does that mean to you? There has been an International Women’s Day since 1910. Women all over the world have been in a struggle much longer than that. It might seem that it is hopeless but through the years there has been some progress made for women, but sometimes for every step forward there are several steps back. Rallys and commemorations, do have some place in this struggle. Ideas of how women can achieve gender equity on a broad level are still being imagined and those that are imagined cue up for some kind of implementation. 

Over time I have come to understand the strange twist of words and actions that sometimes prevent women from achieving gender equity. Probably the most important prevention to gender equity is ignorance, lack of education, for both sexes. Countries which keep women back from power, even in their own lives, over their own destinies tend to be countries where women are restricted in their education. Without access to education, even rudimentary education, those in authority have a way of controlling women from finding out what they can be, what they can do, what they can learn. Women must be as valuable as men in a culture and until that overall principle is embraced globally, restrictions on what women can access in the way of education is going to continue to be the largest stumbling block. 

Elevating women out of poverty, allowing them to have venture capital to start businesses, even in the most uneducated and poor countries, allows women a place of prominence in their communities. It provides the ability to care for themselves and their children. It also instills within, the beginning of what they will need to fight the status they are culturally forced to endure because of ignorance and some traditions. What they need to fight this negative status is self confidence, a sense of indignation, the ability to use their new found power to begin to break the chains of male dominance in their cultures. They need to turn back the surge of anti women sentiment with a shower of what women can do for their cultures and countries.

Female children in many countries are still unwanted. The reasons for this are many, but the main reason is that they are considered valueless. Giving women an opportunity to create their own livelihood teaches their value to their societies in the basest of terms. Money seems to be always what talks the loudest. 

 Economic March 1974,  Chicago Women's Liberation Union

 photo from Illinois State University

I was raised with a feminist attitude. I enjoyed my brief interlude almost all the way through college, that life would be a place where men and women were equals. No matter how hard I tried to change the playing field in my twenties, I found that the world I was in was not the one I thought. Okay I admit it. I have now raised a feminist daughter. What I have learned is what I am offering here. In this world money motivates. To be sure, the rape, mutilation, slavery, social imprisonment of women are all issues that are very real and part of the devaluation of women in our world, but what seems to conquer that on many fronts is economic stability. What we seem to respect most in this world is the power of money. So there, women need financial stability, they need control over their own lives, they need to be valued for the fantastic people that they are.

Indian Woman Entrepreneurs Learning -Photo from the International Development and Relief Foundation 

Ah, if women ruled the world…would there be war, would there be famine, would there be poverty, would there be unloved children? We can only guess about these things as the reality is, we women are certainly a long way from ruling it, we are still trying to survive it. Until the day when a woman in any country is free from violence, oppression and submission, I fear our work in this world is not done.

Lilly Ledbetter and I, she was the inspiration for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009,  and advocates for equal pay in the United States.

 Copyright 2010 SheilaTGTG55