Random Voices

Every year there's a date in March supposedly “celebrate” women. In the US there's even a whole month (March) to “celebrate” women in History.

I was always baffled that we need a day (or month) to be celebrated (yes I'm going countercurrent).

Despite the hardships, I've always faced life in a somewhat utopian way. The thoughts:

We should all be celebrated each day as the amazing beings that we are (even if we are the only ones doing so).

We are NOT the image that (a) distorted and biased person(s) has(have) of us.

One is NOT a failure (or looser) just because one wasn't born into money, AND hasn't built an empire worth more than what the average person earns in 4 lifetimes.

A woman is NOT a failure if she's not a mother.

A woman is NOT a failure if she's not a spouse.

A woman is NOT a failure if she got sick because she worried and worked too much to provide for her family.

A woman is NOT a failure if she burnt out while working in a venomous workplace from which she wasn't able to quit (bills are real).

A woman is NOT failure if she flees war to survive and protect her loved ones – a refugee is a complete human being, not a skin or some other physical feature.

A woman is NOT a failure if she flees from violence – or if she barred from fleeing by (an) abusive individual(s).

A woman is NOT less just because another woman decides to belittle her, despite the absurdity of that behaviour

These and so many other thoughts are the cause of me not “celebrating” International Women's Day (or for the US, Women's History Month). Instead, like Kaye Jones , I'm marking the important date(s). Never forgetting the “hard bits”.

The celebration I'll keep for all the other days – when I remember how astonishing it is for us to be alive.