TODAY is International Women’s Day. This month of March is also National Women’s Month. This movement can be traced back to a hundred years ago. History teaches and inspires us how our foremothers, especially the working class women, ignited the fire of protest and changed the system.
In 1917, the striking women of Russia marched to protest against food shortages and the imperialist World War I. That strike spread across Petrograd. And by October of the same year, Tsarist Russia was abolished and a new system of government of the working class – the proletariats – was in place.
As it was in the past, so it will be at present. The Filipino women must continue the vigor of our foremothers in calling for the uplifment of economic conditions as well as the achievement of social justice and peace. Joblessness continues to rise. Unemployed men and women is over a million. But women are constantly counted low in the labor force. Most women are hired in labor-intensive, low-skilled, and low paid jobs. As jobs remain rare and wages hang low, poverty worsens.
Multiple burdens hound women – as mothers, wives, unpaid family workers, underpaid contractual employees and other forms of oppression that bind them in a cycle of poverty and disempowerment. It is thus imperative for women to build movements, aligned with other oppressed sectors in society. It is in the collective strength of women and the people that they have triumphed over dictators and patriarchal systems that have diminished them for a long time.
We take courage from the women who have lived, resisted and fought before; and march alongside those who continue to fight for a just society. Yes, we still have a long way to go. But giving up is not an option.
As the world commemorates International Women’s Day, advocates of women’s rights and welfare must again reaffirm solidarity against all forms of gender-based neglect, abuse, repression and violence.
