Today is women’s day. Women’s day is an important day. We march together on this day to remind ourselves and those in government to promote and uphold policies and laws as well as the mindset that women’s rights are human right. Women’s rights are complex and had to be understood even by men as well as women. The Social party of America, which gave birth to the suffrage’s movement knew this way too well when they launched the first Women’s on February 28, 1909. Russian Women gained suffrage in 1917 and established March 8 as a national holiday. The day was mostly celebrated in communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 in the United States and the United Nations. Worth noting that China had adopted March 8 as Women’s day in 1949. In 1977, the UNGA invited members states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for women’s right and world peace.
It is important to put this into context when observing the various issues on Women’s right debate, protests, and laws. More importantly it has to be understood by all citizens, youth, children and adults what they rights are, and why legislations have to be gender sensitive. It has been a long hard huddle for women just to get their voices heard on right to vote, right to equal pay and all aspect of gender equality. In 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Conference on plan for Action changed the course with an outcome that laid the blue print for new strategies and energy for advancing women’s rights.
Things have been moving great on all front. CEDAW has become immensely popular, among member states and UN Women was formed by merging the various committees working against Women abuses and discriminations. The ERA has resurfaced in the US and the CSW meeting has followed up with steam on the sail. Nevertheless, there are some noticeable problems arising. Most of it are concerning. People who are weaponizing the cause, using it as an outlet for private interest, venting, anger with malicious intention to damage and jeopardize. We forgot, it seems, that the purpose of the cause is peace by improvement of the whole society. There is a Chinese adage that says we do not have to burn down the whole farm every time we have desire to roast a pig.
Members of the Me-too movement rose to fame with protest against President Trump, Kavanaugh, and other Chauvinistic Republicans in the US Political elites. It quickly gained popularity with the wave of movements that supported Hilary Clinton. They took on many cases and brought down larger than life media giants including Charley Rose, Matt Lauer, Roy Moore, Al Franken as well as demigods of Hollywood such as Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and R. Kelly and so many others. Despite the fact that American women have generally been supportive of #MeToo, some have begun to question the In a Vox/Morning Consult poll conducted in March, 69 percent of women said they supported the weaponization of the cause. Many had concerns about #MeToo — 63 percent were worried men would be falsely accused, and 60 percent were worried that women would be denied opportunities because men would be afraid to work with them. But in focus groups Vox conducted along with the polling firm Perry Undem, women’s worries about the movement were typically rooted in a desire for it to succeed in its goal of reducing harassment and assault.
A friend shared a video about a Somali sharia court ruling where two teenagers were convicted for raping a ten-year-old girl and castration was the verdict; the judge pulled huge knife, the boys were held and cut through their pants to detach their penises. It was grotesque. I wished that we could hear from the boys before the verdict was carried out.
Another group of Me-too Movement protesting in Los Angeles went to desecrate Michael Jackson’s monument after the release of Leaving Neverland documentary film, where children involved in the allegations, now adults, are giving testimonies. It should be put into context that the CIA and FBI did a thorough investigation and found no wrong doing in the Michael Jackson’s case. The whole point is that malicious intent is not a gender factor. It is a human instinct that could be triggered by a number of factors.
We the peoples need to be cognizant of the probabilities. This is why we need to refocus the purpose and the original intention of the women’s cause and the whole point of the women’s movement, which is the advancement of human civilization. The idea of civility is to organize the human conditions into productive chores and make every attempt to tame or remove the instinct of savagery without compromising the human integrity. This means that we can not be doing wrong whilst attempting to do right. The civil society group continue to convene, push policies where it can as well as educate on the opportunity cost of the negligence or inability to educate, empower, and protect the female population.
When a society decides to promote harmony within is people, it plants a seed of peace, especially in early childhood learning. When gender studies are part of the curriculum, the society reduces the level of abuses, since gender is no longer a hindrance to participate equally in public dialogues, worship, learn, and work together without compromising the ethical standard of gender boundaries. This will improve performance and good output. We believe that men and Women can complement each other’s strengths and supplement each other’s weaknesses. This could improve understanding between the sexes and reduce avoidable conflicts, eliminate gender power struggle and domestic abuse. We believe the promotion of gender harmony by including men in the dialogue is a strategic solution to gender equality.
I would urge you to consider gender harmony as we celebrate this Women’s month and focus on contributing to the peace.
We are very delighted to invite to attend Understanding Gender Harmony -Commission on the Status of Women’s Parallel Event taking place from 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm on March 19, 2019 at UN Church Center, 777 United Nation’s Plaza, Church 2nd floor, New York. A banquet will follow, starting at 6-10PM at Downtown Yummy Restaurant in Chinatown – address: 39 E Broadway New York, NY 10002.