March 8th is International Women’s Day. Again. Again as in, March 8th has been International Women’s Day since 1913. That’s 105 years worth right there.
International Days are days proclaimed by the United Nations to mark particular events or causes in order to promote the topic globally, through awareness and action. Currently, there are 152 International Days proclaimed by the UN. That’s almost one every second day of the year.
Many of these days are reasonably obscure: for example – World Tropics Day; World Rabies Day; International Asteroid Day; World Bee Day; International Tuna Day are a sample. And rightly so, because they are all important causes.
The big difference between these sorts of International Days and International Women’s Day, however, is that these sorts of days are there to focus our attention on something the vast majority of us don’t turn our minds to on a reasonable regular basis. I for one don’t spend much time thinking about, reading about or listening to debate on World Soil Day or International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Are these important topics? Absolutely. Should they have an international day of recognition? Absolutely. Why? Because on the whole, these are important global issues which are less likely to be front of mind for many of us. Having a ‘Day’ devoted to them brings our awareness to them.
This is not the case when it comes to Women’s Rights. The aim of International Women’s Day is to achieve full gender equality for all women, worldwide.
This is a topic, a debate, which rages every single day. On any given day around the world there will be articles written, tweets tweeted, posts posted and public comment on gender equality. This is a topic that is already omnipresent.
So, my point is this. Are we really doing the sisterhood a service by continuing to allocate one day of celebration, or outrage as the case may be, to awareness and action for ‘Women’s Rights’?
Surely, after 105 years of pushing the barrow for equality worldwide, we have come far enough that this is a discussion we should be, and are, having each and every day? Surely we no longer need to proclaim one day in particular as ‘the day’ to draw attention to this particular cause?
When my kids were little and we celebrated Mothers Day, they would invariably ask – ‘Why isn’t there a Kids Day?’, to which I would respond with the words my mum spoke to me when I asked the same question – ‘Every day is kids day!.’ And so that is my war cry – every day is Women’s Day because we do, and need to continue to, discuss gender equality every day.
Let’s free up 8 March for another, more obscure, cause worthy of public attention.