Some Hopeful Thoughts On International Women’s Day In This Scary Time.
This International Women’s Day, I wish you all:
A safe place to feel all the hard feelings that come with a holiday like this in a time like ours.
A supportive community to hold you up when the weight of what’s happening in our country and around the world feels too heavy.
The strength to continue fighting for the world you want for both yourself and the next generation.
But most of all, I wish you hope.
International Women's Day, celebrated annually on March 8, celebrates the Women's Rights Movement. This holiday, first celebrated in 1909, focuses our attention on issues like gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women.
Thanks to the work of so many who came before us, women have gained many rights since 1909. Yet since the overturn of Roe V. Wade in 2022 and the subsequent loss of reproductive rights, as well as the continued assault on those same rights, this holiday continues to be just as necessary.
The goal of these pieces of legislation is to control us, to control our bodies, to limit our choices. And yet we cannot stop fighting and we cannot give up, no matter how hopeless it can feel. Because of those who came before us, women have made so much progress in the past century.
The fight is long and ongoing but the evidence of progress is there, despite these recent devastating set backs.
According to Pew Research:
Women made up 47% of the U.S. civilian labor force in 2023, up from 30% in 1950
Women outnumber men in the U.S. college-educated workforce, now making up 51% of those ages 25 and older
About a third of workers in the country’s 10 highest-paying occupations (35%) are women – up from 13% in 1980
The share of women in opposite-sex marriages who earn as much as or more than their husband has roughly tripled over the past 50 years
Feel everything you feel about the assault on our reproductive rights. I know I do.
Feel everything you feel about the continued pay gap, the lack of women in leadership positions in business and government, the continued acceptance of violence against women perpetrated by those in power, the impact recent legislation has had on women’s health, even more stark impact these gaps have on the health and livelihood of women of color and trans women.
But don't give up hope.
Because progress is slow and rarely moves in one direction. Progress is always two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it’s three steps back and four steps forward.
We can’t allow hopelessness to be the reason we exit the fight.
We can’t allow hopelessness to be the reason that 100 years from now, the world isn’t a safer place for all women than it is today.
So if you can, keep fighting. Keep voting. Keep educating those around you. Keep supporting one another. Keep raising children who care. Keep donating.
Keep your hope alive.
This post was written by Dr. Rebecca Maidansky, owner of Lady Bird PT, pelvic floor physical therapist, vocal feminist and adult woman hoping that some day in the future, things will feel brighter for all women, everywhere.