WOmen In Power — #InternationalWomensDay
Written by Benjamin Schenkkan Joseph, Andi Bazaar | March 11, 2023
"A year-long study conducted in Bristol revealed that in net-zero debates, the voices of women of colour accounted for just 2% of debate time, despite making up 14% of participants. The reality is even starker for marginalised women."
Every day but especially this #InternationalWomensDay it terrifies me to think that their hard-fought gains as women could be threatened in our country with the wrong leadership in place, we can’t let that happen. Not now, not ever.
We will call out others who use hateful anti-feminist misogynistic tags online, who threaten to rip-up affordable childcare for parents and mothers also who allow anti-choice legislation to be brought forward.
It’s 2023, this is not the future we have worked so long for. This is irresponsible and dangerous. On "International Womens Day" we recognize the progress we’ve made as a society to achieve gender equality.
We reaffirm our commitment to advance the work that remains but the wrong leadership will take women backward nd we can't let that happen.
I am immensely proud of our Liberal government’s work over the last 7 years advancing feminist-based policy and bettering the lives and futures of women and girls because we know when women and girls can fully participate in society, Canada is stronger for it.
After a weekend of speaking on women and climate, I realise that the intersections of women's rights, safety and leadership in the face of climate breakdown may not be obvious.
Here's a quick story to introduce you to the topic:
- The climate crisis disproportionately impacts women especially those within marginalised or vulnerable communities. Of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty worldwide, 70% are women who are most affected by extreme weather events like floods, droughts and forest fires.
- These women are responsible for 50-80% of our planet’s food production and the provision of food, water and energy materials like firewood in their own households. Climate disasters force these women to travel further distances, toil the land harder and face food scarcity.
- With the intensification of climate breakdown, women also experience increased mental and physical abuse. A 2020 Care International UK Report found that “all forms of gender-based violence against women and girls spike during disaster and conflict."
- A UN paper (shorturl.at/huBFK)
Found that “the likelihood of violence related to the use of, access to and control over natural resources may increase particularly in the context of scarcity, environmental pressures and climate change threats."
- Where women are overrepresented in feeling the impacts of climate breakdown, they are underrepresented in the decision-making spheres dedicated to solving it especially women from marginalised communities.
- Women only represented 33% of the authors on the landmark 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report and over 70% of the speaking time in global climate conferences like COP is given to men.
- A year-long study conducted in Bristol revealed that in net-zero debates, the voices of women of colour accounted for just 2% of debate time, despite making up 14% of participants. The reality is even starker for marginalised women.
- Yet, whilst women are at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, they are not just victims. Women hold a unique and important perspective regarding climate change and environmental degradation and without their input, we hinder our progress to more liveable futures.
- Whether on the street protesting, in the public sphere advocating for and amplifying (marginalised) women’s voices, or on the frontline encouraging and putting women in positions of leadership, there is no climate justice without women’s rights.
- Paraphrasing my favourite quote from Thomas Sankara, we are not talking about the inclusion of women out of charity but because it is a “necessary basis for our triumph and success” in overcoming the climate emergency.
Male allies, don't just "let women sit at the table," advocate for them when they are ignored, patronised or spoken over.
This #InternationalWomensDay I'm thinking about the lack of affordable child care in this country, a crisis that harms every single American but disproportionately hurts women. We need universal child care to keep our economy strong, stable and globally competitive.
Child care costs have risen considerably faster than other expenses in recent years, with families now paying, on average, at least five figures a year per child. Just before the pandemic, child care surpassed housing as the number one expense for California families.
As child care costs continue to soar, more families are finding themselves out of options. Millions of Americans an overwhelming majority of whom are women are scaling back their careers because they can’t find affordable child care.
The child care crisis isn't just a problem for families, our entire economy suffers when millions have to forgo promotions, hesitate to form small businesses or quit their jobs.
If you care about our economy, you should care about child care.
Our global competitors invest in child care because it's smart economic policy. The United States needs to catch up and provide women, families and our entire economy with the public good that is universal child care.
This #InternationalWomensDay we want to shine a spotlight on just one of many incredible women to have had a big impact on the world of diabetes research.
“Dorothy Hodgkin" was born in 1910 and developed a passion for science from a very young age. After graduating from the University of Oxford, Dorothy became fascinated with the structure of insulin but had to put her research on hold during the Second World War.
She was instead tasked with finding the shape of penicillin. In 1945, she succeeded helping us to understand how penicillin could overcome bacterial infections.
In 1964, she won the Nobel Prize for her work and to this day remains the only British woman to have done so in science. At the time, headlines around the world focused on her role as a wife “Oxford housewife wins Nobel Prize” rather than her ground-breaking research.
Throughout her career, Dorothy continued to push boundaries for women in science including fighting the withdrawal of research funding from graduate women who decided to marry. However, one particular achievement was yet to come. She never gave up on her research into insulin and in 1969 after 35 years of painstaking work she discovered its 3D shape.
This discovery helped researchers understand what insulin did inside the body and paved the way for the production of synthetic insulin in the lab which millions of people with diabetes all over the world depend on today.
Her achievements are all the more remarkable given she developed rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 28, despite swollen and painful hands she continued to work with the tiny crystals (smaller than a grain of salt) needed for her studies.
Alongside her extraordinary research, Dorothy campaigned tirelessly for peace, nuclear disarmament and international collaboration in science. A true pioneer and someone we're proud to remember today for her incredible contribution to the last #100YearsOfInsulin
March 8 is International Women’s Day. History is full of strong, brilliant, powerful women who have broken barriers, inspired movements and changed the world for the better.
HERE ARE 16 WOMEN YOU SHOULD HAVE LEARNED ABOUT IN SCHOOL.
1. Margaret Hamilton was NASA’s lead software engineer for the Apollo Program. In fact, it was her work that helped create the term “software engineering.” She and her team wrote the code that took humanity to the moon by hand.
Here she is standing next to it.
2. In 1887, a group of men put Susanna Salter’s name on a mayoral election ballot as a joke. They were hoping to discourage women from voting, what did she do?
She won by a landslide and became the first female mayor in the United States.
3. Two male scientists are often credited with the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, but it was Rosalind Franklin’s work that made it possible. She was able to produce a photo that clearly showed a DNA molecule which was later stolen and used in further research.
4. In 1903, Marie Curie became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and is the only woman to have won one twice. Marie discovered radium and created mobile x-rays, millions of people are alive today because of her.
5. Yusra Mardini is a Syrian refugee.
When her boat capsized while trying to reach Europe, she and three others swam to Greece pulling the boat alongside them for three hours! She went on to become an Olympic swimmer and flag-bearer at the Tokyo Games.
6. Sojourner Truth was born into slavery and separated from her family when she was 9, she escaped and became the first Black woman to win a case against a white man to be reunited with her son.
She was the first African American woman honored with a statue at the US Capitol.
7. Jackie Mitchell was 17 when struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig one right after the other.
Grown men were so afraid of her skill that just a few days later, women were declared unfit to play professional baseball.
8. Katherine Johnson started university at 15 and became one of the first Black women to work as a NASA scientist. She was the only woman on an all-male flight research team and she did all her calculations by hand.
Today, NASA has a research facility named after her.
9. In India, a villager named Sampat Pal Devi saw a man beating his wife. When he wouldn’t stop, she returned the next day with five women to confront him.
They called themselves the Gulabi Gang and wore bright pink saris, today they have thousands of members protecting women.
10. When she was 8, Susan La Flesche watched a young Indigenous woman die because white doctors refused to treat her, she used it as motivation to help her community, and became the first Indigenous woman to earn a medical degree.
11. Wangari Maathai was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a Ph.D.
As an environmentalist, she was harassed and even put in jail. She became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize and today more than 51 million trees have been planted thanks to her.
12. In the ninth century in Morocco, Fatima al-Fihriya inherited a great fortune from her father. Instead of spending it, she designed and built the world’s first university — the University of al-Qarawiyyin and it still exists today.
13. In 1973, Billie Jean King the top women’s tennis player in the world threatened to boycott the US Open unless women were paid the same. It was a bold move, but she didn't back down and it worked. Thanks to her, women get paid the same prize money as men at the Grand Slams.
14. Many people know Ada Lovelace’s father, the poet Lord Byron but Ada’s story is much cooler. Ada is regarded as the world’s first computer programmer, she came up with the process of “looping” which is used in every computer programming language today.
15. Hedy Lamarr was one of the greatest actresses of all time, but what many people don’t know is that she was also an inventor. She and her partner developed a frequency-hopping system, the technology that would one day be the basis for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communication systems.
16. This list couldn’t be complete without Malala Yousafzai.
When she was 15, she was shot in the head for speaking up for women’s rights. She survived and went on to become the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Today, her foundation has helped millions of girls stay in school. The world is filled with women who have shaped the very foundation of our lives, the list is never ending. Today and every day we celebrate them and all those who will come after them.
