
So Many Reasons To Celebrate IWD In 2015
So Many Reasons To Celebrate IWD In 2015
Today is International Women’s Day! We should celebrate the amazing courage, resolve, strength, and intelligence of women worldwide both in the ranks of celebrities and ordinary women. True to say that there are so many women’s issues that need to be raised and discussed on a day such as this. To be fair issues of such scale need to be a continuous ongoing discussion throughout the whole year. Today, we will look only at some amazing women that made a mark last year with their words or deeds. This past year has been a good year for gender equality. Indeed so many reasons to celebrate IWD in 2015 and bring to light 2014 accomplishments.
It was the year that Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was the year that Emma Watson was announced as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, kicking her role off with a speech that went viral within hours. If you haven’t watch it this is the weekend to do it in. Watch it below:
The HeForShe campaign finally brought the issue of gender inequality to the mainstream debate of feminism, which had too often been preoccupied with the idea that feminists sought to oppress men as a whole
Last year Facebook stopped censoring breastfeeding photos. The most natural thing in the world, a bond between mother and child and a necessity for a baby’s survival.
One of the year’s most disgusting affair of sexism was turned into triumph when Jennifer Lawrence responded to the leaking of her and hundreds of other women’s private photographs by simply calling the whole incident out for what it was. “It is not a scandal,” Lawrence said. “It is a sex crime.”
The most significant achievement for women over the last year hasn’t been a single achievement at all, but rather the rise of mass outrage. Achieved through the use of the Internet that connected a global audience. Social media brought awareness and criticism to topics like #bringbackourgirls and #yesallwomen and incidents like the kidnap of 276 school girls would have never had the attention it had.
Gender equality has been a long time coming and has a long way to go, but 2014 was a pretty good year, and hopefully, 2015 is going to be even better.
So instead of lamenting the sorry state of all that is not achieved, let’s take a day to celebrate all the above progress.