8 March was / is (depending on where you are out there in the world reading this ) International Women's Day - in fact, the 100th anniversary.
Annie Lennox is an Oxfam ambassador and singer. In an op-ed piece "F-word must be refreshed and reclaimed by a new generation" - this one published in The Age newspaper - she cites some rather startling facts:
"The statistics are sobering. Across the globe, gender-based violence causes more deaths and disabilities among women of child-bearing age than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Even in the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, it's safer to be a soldier than a woman.
Women do two-thirds of the world's work for a paltry 10 per cent of the world's income, and own just 1 per cent of the means of production. Until recently, in the British Parliament, there were more men called David and Nick than female MPs. On the centenary of International Women's Day, I urge you to stop and think."
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"Feminism shouldn't be an F-word. We should embrace it. From Malawi to Melbourne, women are being short-changed on life chances. From India to Illinois, women face violence just for being female. Of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide, the vast majority are female. For many, just getting an education is a struggle, major decisions such as who to marry and when to have children are made for them by others, and without economic independence or a say in their own futures, the chances of women escaping the poverty trap are nearly non-existent."
Annie Lennox is an Oxfam ambassador and singer. In an op-ed piece "F-word must be refreshed and reclaimed by a new generation" - this one published in The Age newspaper - she cites some rather startling facts:
"The statistics are sobering. Across the globe, gender-based violence causes more deaths and disabilities among women of child-bearing age than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined. Even in the war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, it's safer to be a soldier than a woman.
Women do two-thirds of the world's work for a paltry 10 per cent of the world's income, and own just 1 per cent of the means of production. Until recently, in the British Parliament, there were more men called David and Nick than female MPs. On the centenary of International Women's Day, I urge you to stop and think."
****
"Feminism shouldn't be an F-word. We should embrace it. From Malawi to Melbourne, women are being short-changed on life chances. From India to Illinois, women face violence just for being female. Of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide, the vast majority are female. For many, just getting an education is a struggle, major decisions such as who to marry and when to have children are made for them by others, and without economic independence or a say in their own futures, the chances of women escaping the poverty trap are nearly non-existent."
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