We discuss and talk about issues in order to bring awareness, understanding, knowledge, education, information, breakdown barriers and so on.
Women’s issues are never far off from the limelight. One has to look at the news, follow social media, read the news sites to learn about the plight of women and girls. There’s violence and there’s violence. When we see violence on our streets in broad daylight and when women continue to be killed, it brings it right home. It’s saying to me we need to talk some more about this.
Regardless of the negative issues facing girls and women around the world, a good thing out of this is the unmuzzled voice voices from fellow women. Girls and women are being heard if not listened to. Issues around women and girls continue to be highlighted, especially so when there’s an incident.
Nowadays, girls and women are empowered and know how to use their voice on platforms that matter.
Thank you for small and big changes
Thank you girls and women for bringing positive change.
Thank you everybody that has reported on girl’s and women’s issues in and around your communities and around the world.. From the suffragettes to 21st century girls and women, thank you for highlighting inequalities. Suffrage feminists fought for women to have the right to vote, taking the movement seventy-two years to achieve this.
Thank you for giving women the right to vote.
We continue to see the plight of women and girls all over the world. The only good thing is that the world has changed. Technology enables issues, images and reports on girls and women to be beamed with such speed when they break. The use of social media, cameras, cell phones and so on means issues are reported as they happen. It’s not always smooth depending on the regime, state, culture, beliefs and media laws of a particular country. In some cases we see culture and religion being fused together to suppress certain values. But we are better off than where we were a century ago. Thanks to technology and those using and driving it Thanks to today’s girl child for taking a stand.
Lobbyist, women’s charities, bloggers, feminists and all, thank you for speaking out on misogyny : ‘dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women’ .
Policy makers, leaders, influential voices, thank you for:
- Promoting education for girls and women
- Reproductive rights for women
- Gender rights
- Employment rights
- Freedoms and so on.
Media, and women protests groups, thank you for highlighting :
- gender violence., (Maida Vale stabbing January 2022) in the streets of UK in broad daylight.
According to (bbc.co.uk 24 September 2021); ‘there were 4493 male victims of killings and 2075 females victims (31%) in England and Wales. More than nine out of ten killers were men. About 57%of female victims were killed by someone they already knew‘
Thank you for filming and posting on news websites issues around the plight of girls and women:
- Crimes
- Sexual harrasment
- Domestic abuse
- Rape
- Cyber bullying
- Spiking drinks
- women’s rights in the workplace
- Women’s rights in education
- Criminal justice
- and so on and on.
Pregnancy and parenting discrimination , for example firing women because they are pregnant, pushing women out of the workforce is still a big issue in developed countries like the US and elsewhere. It is an unfair practice to make a mother choose between their baby or return to work. Workplace inequalities that discriminate against mothers in some cases by the courts and legislators show that we still have a long way to go to bring positive change.
In Sub-Saharan Africa the rate of teenage pregnancy is relatively high and there’s still stigma around it. After Covid-19, Zimbabwe is encouraging girls to return to school after giving birth, according to (amp.abc.net.au). Of course, some peers will laugh and make funnies about a pregnant teen, bullying and so on, but the fact that teenage girls have a choice to go to school while pregnant and after giving birth is something to be commended. It doesn’t matter where one is in the world, there’s always stigma around some issues. Taking that step to normalize what is being frowned on, in this case teenage pregnancy is good. The boys and men who’d have impregnated the girls are not persecuted or victimized.
- Continue talking.
- Bring positive change.
- Lets’ support our girls wherever they are in the world.
In order to cover a financial crisis and make ends meet, some families marry off young girls to older men That’s a topic for another time. Chores as well where girls do more than boys, getting up early, fetching water usually far from the homestead, sweep, make the fire, before one goes to school are some examples. But mindsets are changing. Accepting equal chores amongst siblings and promoting love.
I’m glad to say that some of these practices are becoming less so as there is more awareness and treating family members as equals.
Women’s issues are broad, deep and wide. But they need to remain current so that together we don’t forget, or claim we didn’t know. Beating up somebody’s child, daughter because you’re married to them is plain wrong. What gives you the right. Leave if you want to leave or let them go.
If something doesn’t look or seem, right report it.
Unfortunately some atrocities are being carried out by very influential people, world leaders, sound economies!
The advantage today is that we can talk, discuss , report and let the perpetrators face their day in court.
Wherever we are in the world, let us treat our female folk with dignity and respect. They are our mothers, wives, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, daughters, grand daughters and so on. In the community, they are our neighbours, doctors, dentists, nurses, therapists, cleaners, supermarket workers, leaders and so on . Like it or not, the planet is for all to share. Regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age religion, ability or class.
Use your advantage, VOICE:
- talk, discuss, report it.
- We have a long way to go to give all the women and girls around the world the same rights and freedoms, for a better life. But as history has shown us, it can be done.