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This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day, and we’ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights.

This is our last live blog for Blog for International Women’s Day. We are so happy to see that many of you participated, and we thank you for taking the time to write about equal rights! There are many other blogs that wrote about equal rights on IWD which we weren’t able to include in our live blogs . . . but that doesn’t mean that they’re awesome. They’re worthwhile to read, so please check them out – you can find them by clicking on the blogs listed on the Blog for IWD Blog Directory. Thanks again!

We have now closed the sign-up form for Blog for IWD 2010. If your blog is not listed on the blog directory but you had signed up before closing, please contact us immediately at info@genderacrossborders.com.

And without further ado, here’s what some of you are saying about equal rights:

(Featured blogs after the jump: If She Cry Out, Tiens moi au courant!, Sex. Justice. Change., Science Club for Girls, Musings by Rebekah Stewart, Of Language & Adventures of a Young Feminist) Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day, and we’ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights. Here’s what some of you are saying:

(Featured blogs after the jump: Voracious Vegan, Small Strokes, Change.org Women’s Rights, Heartfeldt Politics, Hello Ladies & Impulse Thoughtz)

Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day, and we’ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights. Here’s what some of you are saying:

(Featured blogs after the jump: The Undomestic Goddess, The Big Five, Feminist Teacher, Dust in a Sunbeam and A Pittsburgh Feminist)

Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG.

Today is International Women’s Day, and we‘ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights. Here’s what some of you are saying:

At Eugenia de Altura, a graduate student studying in Bolivia, explores the different cultural perceptions of machismo and sexismo, which she argues are the same thing.  She explains:

It’s time to wake up: machismo is sexismo. Unequal ideas about appropriate male and female behavior, about who men and women are- psychologically or biologically, and about what men and women deserve, are what justify, legitimize, and normalize unequal rights and unequal opportunities for men and women.

Continuing with a truly universal message, she writes, “So, this is what ‘equal rights, equal opportunity: progress for all’ means to me—it means recognizing that ideas about sexual difference are constructed, not natural, and it means exposing the lies that these ideas represent.”

Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

For Blog for International Women’s Day, we’ve asked you to describe a person or event that has helped to fight for equal rights around the world. At GAB we decided to answer our own question, and each editor came up with her/his own Global Feminist Profile.

As some of you may know, a Global Feminist Profile [GFP] is a monthly column on Gender Across Borders that highlights feminist leaders all over the world who are creating change and empowering their countrywomen to demand equality.  GFPs run on the third Monday of each month. Some previous Global Feminist Profiles have been: Audacia Ray, Marta Lamas, and Dr. Shershah Syed, to name a few. You can look at the complete archives of the Global Feminist Profiles by clicking here.

And without further ado, I give you the mini-Global Feminist Profiles from each of the GAB editors:

Dr. Lee Ae-ran, profile by Erin Rickard

Dr. Lee Ae-ran’s activist pursuits have risen out of her early experience with political oppression. Dr. Lee was born in North Korea, and when she was 11 years old she and her family were imprisoned in a labor camp. After suffering eight years of abuse she was released, and she went on to earn a college degree and eventually fled to South Korea. She has founded several aid organizations for North Korean refugees, including the Hana Defector Women’s Organization that provides women with education and child care; the North Korea Traditional Culinary and Culture Institute which trains women in culinary and entrepreneurial skills; and the Global Leadership Scholarship Program for students. Dr. Lee is one of this year’s recipients of the US State Department’s annual International Women of Courage Awards.

Hélène Cixous, profile by Kyle Bachan

Hélène Cixous is a French feminist writer, poet and playwright. With over seventy works detailing the relationship between sexuality and language, she is considered one of the mothers of poststructuralist feminist theory. Hélène’s body of work is considered to be a wealth of self-liberation, for herself, and for all others. She founded the first centre for women’s studies in Europe at the University of Paris VIII, and still teaches there today.

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, profile by Emily Heroy

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, originally from Mumbai, India and now resides in the U.S., became influential after her essay “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses,” published in 1986 by Duke University Press. For me personally, this essay changed my outlook on what international feminism meant. Specifically, she breaks down the structure of the “Third World Woman,” and how  oppression is very diverse, from country to country and from culture to culture. Mohanty writes about this subject further in a book of essays entitled Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Mohanty is currently the department chair of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day, and we‘ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights. Here’s what some of you are saying:

(Featured blogs after the jump: Feministe, Feminist Review, Kenyan Woman Professors, Equality 101, and FWD/Forward).

Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day (the 100th, I might add!), and the theme this year is “Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all.”

To me, the thought of, “equal rights for all” means breathing a HUGE sigh of relief.  To me, “equal rights for all” is a vision we must keep in focus and continue moving toward, step by step.  Many times it doesn’t feel attainable, and other times it seems within reach.

But Secretary Clinton’s words, which she spoke at the 15^th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) continue to ring in my ears as the days go by:

I just want to urge that we do not grow weary…please, stay with us and let’s try to create institutional and structural change that does not get wiped away when the political winds blow.

Let’s try to create markets for these goods and ways of funding them and educational and instructional programs along with our commitment to serve that will give women everywhere a chance to take their own lives and their own futures into their own hands.

This International Women’s Day feels different than the last…and the last before that, and the last before that. It’s been a big year, and there is a new sense of urgency and hope in the air when it comes to global women’s issues.  Read the rest of this entry →

This post is a part of the Blog for IWD BLOG

Today is International Women’s Day, and we’ve asked you to blog about your thoughts about equal rights. Here’s what some of you are saying:

At Deeplyflawedbuttryingblog, the author talks about a famous Valazquez painting which was slashed by suffragette Mary Richardson:

This painting was commissioned for the private enjoyment of a very powerful man, himself an architect of a society where women’s sexuality was so sinful that it needed to be repressed. The repression of female sexuality which has formed the basis of our morality for centuries, ensured that this painting could only be commissioned, or viewed, as an expression of something shameful and hidden . . .

When Mary Richardson, a young militant suffragette, slashed the painting in 1914, while it hung in the national gallery (in her own words, she had ‘tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs.Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history‘)- the British public were outraged.

When I vote in the upcoming general election, I do so because women like Mary Richardson were willing to stand up and be counted. And when I see this painting by Velazquez, I know that the ‘ideas’ that women like Mary Richardson fought for, are not new.

[read the complete post here]

At AAUW Dialog, Holly talks about a woman named Irena Sendler who helped to mobilize a change in the fight for equal rights during World War II: Read the rest of this entry →

The Beijing Declaration remains as relevant today as when it was adopted. The third Millennium Development Goal – to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment – is central to all the rest. When women are denied the opportunity to better themselves and their societies, we all lose. On this International Women’s Day, let us look critically at the achievements of the past 15 years so we can build on what has worked, and correct what has not. Let us work with renewed determination for a future of equal rights, equal opportunities and progress for all. -Secretary General of the U.N., Ban Ki-moon on “Secretary General’s Message for International Women’s Day 2010“

Today is International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day isn’t just a day to celebrate women — it’s a day to celebrate their progress of equal rights and what it means for women of the future.

The history of International Women’s Day began in 1975, where the United Nations celebrated International Women’s Year. It was finally declared in 1977 that March 8th would be the official “International Women’s Day,” and cited the following two reasons for this observation:

1. To recognize the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women
2. To acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security. -from the U.N. WomenWatch website

Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the U.N., has this to say about International Women’s Day: Read the rest of this entry →

Click on image for image credit.

As many of you know, Gender Across Borders is planning the first-ever Blog for International Women’s Day [IWD] and it’s just around the corner.  Blog for IWD is only three days away–this Monday, March 8. The U.N. theme for International Women’s Day is “Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all/” Based off of that theme, we’re asking bloggers to write posts this Monday on their blogs about IWD, and think about the following ideas:

*What does “equal rights for all” mean to you?
*Describe a particular organization, person, or moment in history that helped to mobilize a meaningful change in equal rights for all.

We’ll be reading the answers to these questions from blogs who signed up for Blog for IWD (click here for the full blog directory)–and we’ll also live-blog what some of you are saying about equal rights. In addition to our live-blogging throughout the day, Gender Across Borders has some exciting things planned . . . so, stay tuned!

We have about eighty blogs signed up right now, and there’s always room for more. Tell your blogger friends about Blog for IWD (they can sign up for it here), and tell your Twitter friends that they can tweet their responses about equal rights using the hashtag #BlogforIWD.

We hope you enjoy the day as much as we will. If you have any questions or concerns regarding Blog for IWD, feel free to respond to this email (or write to info@genderacrossborders.com).

Thanks, and we’ll see you on Monday!