(Cancun, February 28, 2023, cimacnoticias).- There was once a group of women who rebelled against the obligation to wear only black and no jewelry. They organized themselves and took to the streets in the most colorful clothes they could find and with as much jewelry as they had. That was in Rome when it was still an empire.
Another time, a group of peasant women invented their own script because they were forbidden to learn to write. They embroidered or painted the writing on a wide variety of things. Nüshu was passed from mothers to daughters and nieces to granddaughters. That was in China, in the first century BC.
Israeli women have also accompanied Palestinian women to the beach on numerous occasions, despite the war between their countries. In this century.
Also in this century, Iranian women have removed their hijab and cut their hair as a protest against oppression and as a cry for life and freedom.
Organized and unorganized women can be found at any time and in any place, in small groups or in large collectives. They all demand that being a woman does not mean oppression, exclusion, discrimination, violence or death. And they all fight for equality and peace.
Because of this, and because of this, women from other times have chosen March 8 to take stock. To see what has happened and what still needs to be done for women’s rights.
More than a hundred years ago, during the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in 1910, March 8th was decided as International Women’s Day.
Almost 50 years ago, in 1975, the UN celebrated March 8th as International Women’s Day.
And for some years now, hundreds, thousands, millions of women have taken to the streets of their cities to demand an end to the violence, to demand justice, to make it clear that our bodies belong to us and not to church or state; to demand equality, to finally denounce oppression, and to claim the rights that have been taken away from us just because we are women.
But above all, we gather to fight together.
This March 8th, all the women in the world will be together. Some of us will reflect on how and why. Others will commemorate milestones in women’s rights in history to pass the message from generation to generation, as women have done in China.
Perhaps some will be united in silence or alone because it may cost their lives to speak or meet.
It is possible that others will discreetly wear something purple, the color of feminism, and we will recognize ourselves from that alone.
And there will also be those who make demands for all those who cannot do it themselves. Who will scream at the top of their lungs, who will carry placards and purple scarves with the feminist symbol, or who will wear green scarves with the abortion rights symbol.
The ways of expression will be different, but we fight together.
Because we’re not done yet. And some had to start all over again.
Because no women’s rights are guaranteed, never were and never will be.
Because at best we only have some rights.
Because the goal is: All rights for all women, everywhere in the world.
We are not finished yet by News Pool Latin America is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international.