The first ever Women’s Day was organized by the Socialist party of America on February 28th, 1909 in honor of the garment workers’ strike in 1908 in New York, where women stood united, demanding improved working conditions and equal rights.
This took hold from the United States, spreading across the European countries through the early 1900’s and finally being accepted by the United Nations in 1975. It was not until a mere 42 years ago that the UN proclaimed March 8th as the official day of women’s rights and world peace.
“Forty two years is a blink of the eye in history standards, and yet many of us live so detached today that it is not even a thought in our head’s that 50 years ago we, as women, had little freedoms we take for granted today.”
Even though we have made great strides, our cause is still young.
There are still many pink bricks to be laid on our road to equality. Earnings for example, are a widely known area in which there is still a great gap. This is true not only from men to women’s wages, but also clearly demonstrates that the gap grows increasingly larger in ethnic, non-caucasian demographics. These statistics clearly cite not only is there still gender inequality, but race issues are still widely prevalent in society as well.
Just to give an example of this, caucasian females typically earn 79 cents to every dollar compared to caucasian males, while african american women earned just 62.5 cents to every dollar, hispanic women 54.4 cents on the dollar, and across broad segments of other ethnic populations, women earn a staggering 49 cents to every caucasian man’s dollar. As stated, we have a long way to go as a society, and as a species.
The wage gap is only one molecule of the iceberg of inequality we as women continue to face today. Another issue that is not publicized nearly enough, and brought to a stop as it should be, is human trafficking, aka modern day slavery. Women and young girls are at the forefront of this epidemic ranking in at a staggering 71% of all trafficking crimes.
The Department of Defense, as well as many other organizations have now stated that sex trafficking of women and children is now the world’s fastest growing crime.
Did you catch that? THE WORLD’S FASTEST GROWING CRIME IS HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN. This is happening in every country, in every state, and in every city across the globe.
The movement of women’s rights, which began back in the 19th century states inclusivity of bodily integrity and autonomy, meaning to be free from sexual violence, which is clearly an uphill battle in our current world situation. Women also fought and continue to fight for the rights to vote and hold public office, to enter into binding legal contracts, to equal work rights consisting of equal pay, to have equal rights in the division of family law, to own our own properties, receive equal education and to hold our own rights of our divine feminine reproductivity.
In reading through the astounding and completely unacceptable statistics, it then becomes easier to see that our cause, to simply obtain equal respect on a level of species, remains much in it’s infancy. Education is paramount for both women and men to achieve change in this epidemic of global scale. Education to our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters begins with the responsibility of educating ourselves. It is often said that like attracts like. In other words, hiding in the shadows only attracts more things to feel the need to hide in the shadows from. Likewise, learning and receiving respect from others begins with the education and respect we show to ourselves and those around us.
In spite of the immense efforts we still face to achieve equal rights, I for one, am proud to be born into the beautiful sisterhood of women. Women were the original healers of ancient times, and many of us are just now learning of our deeply imbedded ancestral innate power that has been hidden in those shadows for far too long. We are waking up to the remembrance that through our love and compassion we can heal ourselves. As we wake up to this innate healing that each one of us possesses, we break the ties of past trauma bonds, and we not only free ourselves, but we heal generations that have come before us and pave the path of a peaceful future of those generations to come.
We may have a long road ahead, but I know and see that there is a revolution happening right now as I write these words. This revolution is catapulting major shifts in the collective consciousness. We are shining the light into the cracks and filling them with gold, like the tradition of wabi-sabi in Japan. We are learning that we are not broken. We are realizing that we are not less than. We are not objects. We are not for the taking or sale. We ARE women. We are strong. We are beautiful and we are ALL worthy of respect and freedom.
So on this, our day, my hat goes off to all of you beautiful, deserving, and talented ladies. It is no coincidence that they combined women’s day and world peace day. We are the Divine Feminine. We are the bearers of life, in all nations and walks of life. We are the one’s called to heal this planet. We are all equal and deserving. We are women.
To all my divine soul sisters across this planet, I love you all. May we all walk in honor of ourselves and each other, in love and light, bringing the peace that our true mother, Mother Earth, is crying out for. Thank you for being the strong, amazing soul that you are. The Divine Feminine in me honors the Divine Feminine in you.