Editor:
March 8 is International Women’s Day, an opportunity to celebrate advancements in the movement to create gender equality and to acknowledge the work of millions of women and men to establish a more just world.
At the same time, it is important to strip the veils that obscure misogynistic practices at home and abroad. In Nigeria hundreds of school girls have been kidnapped by the Boko Haram. Their only “crime” is seeking an education. Some of these girls have been trafficked across borders as sex slaves.
In Canada we have a pandemic of missing and murdered Aboriginal women. In B.C. we have the Highway of Tears. Despite women’s and Aboriginal groups calling attention to this racist anti-woman violence, the Harper government persists in refusing even to establish a commission of inquiry. At the other end of the scale, we have a pattern of sexual harassment on university campuses. For far too many women, here and elsewhere, violence is an everyday event.
The plague of gender inequality, up to and including violence against women, is not just a women’s problem and will not be solved by the efforts of women alone. To end violence against women men too must speak out, not allowing their silence to be interpreted as condoning the violent behaviour of their brothers. Feminists and pro-feminist men complement each other to embody a true movement for social justice.
On March 8 treasure the women in your life and commit to taking action — personal, national, international — to move humans along toward women’s liberation. It is said world peace begins at home. Let us model that for our children by opposing anti-woman violence wherever it is found. May our grand-daughters learn to walk free of fear.
Lisa S. Price, Gibsons
