HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!


To all the amazing women out there, fighting for justice, raising families, working hard at their jobs, trailblazing, speaking out, surviving…. We wish you all the best on this special day (and every day).  You matter, your voice needs to be heard and you deserve equal representation, opportunities and rights.

Let us take a moment to remember that not all our sisters are able to celebrate today.  Many are locked away in the dungeons of sweatshops and factories, or are imprisoned for standing up for themselves, or are too afraid of abuse, or are unjustly detained in refugee detention centres around the world.

Feminism is for all women, and those of us who are free to fight for women’s rights must remember to fight for the rights of all women!  Today, think what you can do to help other women less fortunate than yourself, who may not have the opportunity to fight for herself for fear of persecution or death.

There are hundreds of organisations you can support. Here are just a few of them:

Homegrown Not-for-Profits:

The Refugee Action Coalition:  www.refugeeaction.org.au
Immigrant Women’s Speakout Association: http://www.speakout.org.au/
Asian Women at Work: http://www.awatw.org.au
Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan: http://www.sawa-australia.org/
Mahboba’s Promise:http://mahbobaspromise.org/
No FGM Australia: http://www.nofgmoz.com/
The Gender Centre: https://gendercentre.org.au
Women with Disabilities Australia: http://wwda.org.au/

International Organisations:

Association  for Women’s Rights in Development: https://www.awid.org/
International Women’s Development Agency: https://www.iwda.org.au/
Project Futures: http://projectfutures.com/
Desert Flower Foundation: http://www.desertflowerfoundation.org/

We need to be united in our efforts to liberate all women, in all circumstances, in all nations.

Thank you for being one of our followers, for reading our posts and considering our message.  We warmly wish you, and all women and girls, all the very best for 2017 and beyond.

– Tessa, founder of The Sydney Feminists


P.S. Join us at this Saturday’s Sydney IWD March and march for change!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: “The Valkyries by Paulo Coelho”

Image
Recently, while I was reading biographies of some great dreamers, such as   Kahlil Gibran, I pondered the word ‘dream’ and how influential it is in an individual’s life. One night, I asked myself a question, which I want each one of you to think over: what does it mean to dream? Our fantasies may be called a dream. The ambitions towards which we work, our thoughts and visions, these are called dreams. My musings led me to a bookshop where I picked up a book based on the theme of dreams. But this time, the dream is a very unusual one, which demands a long journey and some untypical rituals. “The Valkyries” is written by the bestselling Brazilian novelist, Paulo Coelho. It was published in 1992by Harper Collins. The image is a close up of my hands, surrounded by nature. I am holding and reading “The Valkyries" by Paulo Coelho. In this book, Paulo Coelho, along with his wife Christina Oiticica, embark on a journey to the Mojave Desert to find Paulo’s angel. Pa...
Read more

The Position of Women in the Jehovah’s Witnesses Cult

Image
Jehovah’s Witnesses is an exclusive and restrictive religion whose members claim to be on the path to an enlightening and everlasting life. However, women raised in this cult claim some of their practices represent a serious violation of human rights. For example, there is no gender equality, and women are prevented from advancing in their careers. Lara Kaput, a former Jehovah’s Witness, reveals the position of women in this organisation. Jehovah’s Witnesses is a millenarian evangelical religion founded in 1870 by Charles Taze Russell. The Witnesses believe their cult is a restoration of first-century Christianity and the doctrine is based on the entire Protestant canon of scripture, which is considered the inerrant word of God. Female members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses face multiple restrictions in their life. First, they have the lowest positions in the religious hierarchy and, most of the time, they are excluded from any governing decisions. “I [was] many levels down th...
Read more

The Male Gaze and Social Media

Image
It has always been the ambition of the media to appeal to the masses and invoke desire, whether through films or advertising. For a long time, and even still today, the masses that mattered were men. In feminist theory, the concept of the ‘Male Gaze’ explores the way viewers and consumers engage with visual media in a way that sexualises women in order to empower men. It is specifically targeted at heterosexual men and sees the objectification of women as a fulfillment of male desire. The term was coined in the 1970s by British feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey. She used it to analyse the structure, characters, plotline and overall nature of films of the time. Mulvey’s theory challenged previously accepted ideas and social norms and questioned why audiences and viewers of films and other media were positioned to view women only from the perspective of a straight male. Over the last 40 years, the progression of female representation in films years has increased exponen...
Read more