International Women’s Day: Keep Progress Alive

This past year we’ve seen a lot of progress for the rights of women. We should take today, March 8^th, International Women’s Day, as a time to make sure that we don’t lose our stride.

While International Women’s Day has been informally celebrated since the early 1900s, the United Nations officially recognized it in 1975, marking it as an annual observance to commemorate the importance of the woman in all aspects of society. In many countries, International Women’s Day has graduated to the status of national holiday, including Afghanistan, Armenia, Cambodia, Cuba, Georgia, Eritrea, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, among others.

We commend the efforts made these past several years in the United States towards raising the position of women. Federal agencies, including USAID or the state, defense, and justice departments, have taken heed to President Obama’s December 2011 Executive Order to establish a U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security to ensure women’s participation in preventing conflict and keeping peace. In August of 2012, we celebrated the introduction of the Women, Peace, and Security Act to ensure that this National Action Plan would become more than just an executive order, that we would eventually see its implementation as national legislation.

Most recently, Congress passed the historical Violence Against Women Act. This strengthened our justice system and social services to ensure that women can protect themselves from violence within our own borders, that we can reduce the high rates of physical and sexual violence, so women can safely participate in all aspects of society without fear of attack.

In terms of women’s political participation, an historical number of females were elected composing 18.9% of the 113^th United States Congress—or 101 of the 535 seats (20 Senators, 81 House Members). To name a few significant achievements, Massachusetts saw its first woman elected to Senate (Elizabeth Warren). Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay and female politician to the Senate. New Hampshire became the first state with an all female delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives.

And yet, there is still much to worry about. We may have seen historical gains, but we still fail to rank up to many other countries. While we may have 18.9% participation in Congress, many other countries charge ahead, including Iraq with 25.2% female composition of Parliament or Afghanistan with 27.7%. The Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks the United States as 77th out of 190 countries in terms of female participation. This is unacceptable for a country that prides itself on equality.

In the early 1900s, International Women’s Day focused on improving women’s status in the labor force. Certainly we have achieved much progress in this area since that time. However, women continue to be unfairly discriminated against in the workplace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women have lost 454,000 federal, state, and local government jobs compared with 267,000 by men since the end of the recession in June 2009 (Bloomberg News).

Even this past January, government payrolls cut approximately 8,000 positions for women compared with 1,000 for men. This imbalance is bound to continue as sequestration descends upon our economy, possibly trimming growth by 0.5% and prospectively eliminating 350,000 more jobs, according to Bloomberg News.

Take a moment this International Women’s Day to remember all that women have achieved and that still more needs to be done. Take part in the celebration of women by finding an event near you. We must remember that equality and protection for women means stability worldwide.

-Hannah Wheeler, Communications and Development Intern – Boston College Class of 2012