why do we need to celebrate international women's day?

whenever we talk about something like women’s day, encouraging women empowerment and acknowledging women’s rights, theirs is always someone saying, “hey, women are much better now!” or “we had a woman president. women are free to do whatever they want.” some even go as far to say that these days are just an opportunity for women to hate men. but the truth is, it is for celebrating equality.

this article is, therefore, dedicated to all those who ask why do we need to celebrate a women’s day.

obedience is virtue?

a recent report conducted by the Pew Research Centre shows that nearly nine-in-ten Indians completely or mostly agree that “a wife must always obey her husband.” now, that doesn’t really sound like equality. what’s even worse is that most women agree with this statement in India, so we are very far away from being free.

gender pay gap

no one can deny that there is a gender pay gap all around the world. A study conducted by ADP Research Institute in 2021 showed that only 65% of women got a pay rise for taking extra responsibilities at work as opposed to 70% of men who did the same thing. ‘

where are all the strong businesswomen?

the thing with gender disparity is that every single success story is overplayed as an example that the bad days are over. but when you look at statistics a different picture comes to the foreground. a 2021 report shows that only 2.3% of women-led start-ups received any Venture Capitalist funding. that is also because there are just very few women Venture capitalists in the first place. so, when we cheer on a woman founder becoming successful, it happens in spite of all the hurdles and gender stereotypes, not because these stereotypes no longer exist.

the burden of climate change

various studies and reports over the years have shown that environmental disasters and climate change affect women disproportionately because of unequal division of resources between men and women.

to all of these, we can add reports of women being married off too young, women not being allowed to exercise any rights when it comes to their bodies, women being banned from having any abortions, and on and on it goes.

so, next time, if anyone around you gets up on the high horse and talks about how women can do whatever they want, you know what to tell them.

until next time, live aastey.