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<h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>International Women's
Day,
2007</i></b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/marshall03082007.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/marshall03082007.html<br><br>
</a></font><h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">
<b>We Stand With the Women of the
World</b></font></h1><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By
LUCINDA MARSHALL<br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=6 color="#990000">F</font>
<font face="Verdana" size=2>or the past 5000 years, give or take a
century or two, there has been a persistent tendency to leave unexamined
the impact that social, economic, environmental, and military policies
have on the lives of women throughout the world. As a result, women make
up the majority of those living in poverty, millions of women have died
needlessly due to lack of healthcare and safe living conditions and there
is a worldwide pandemic of violence against women. <br><br>
For those reasons, International Women's Day (IWD), which is observed on
March 8 is a time not only to celebrate women's lives and achievements,
but also a chance to join hands in solidarity with women around the globe
and to focus much needed attention on the many problems women face
today.<br><br>
It has been said that the health of a society is measured by how it
treats its women. With one in three women throughout the world likely to
experience sexual assault during her lifetime, it is not a stretch to say
that this society is in crisis. In recognition of the systemic and
pervasive violence that impacts the lives of women every day, the United
Nations' theme for its 2007 observance of IWD is "Ending Impunity
for Violence against Women." As Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina
Monologues has pointed out, "When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate,
burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on
the planet. You force what is meant to be open, trusting, nurturing,
creative, and alive to be bent, infertile, and broken."<br><br>
Here in the U.S. for the sixth year in a row, President Bush's annual
budget request for funding the Violence Against Women Act once again
falls short of the amount of its Congressional authorization. And while
the President will no doubt serve up the usual annual platitudes about
honoring women on March 8th, his administration has, as it has every year
since 2001, also requested cuts in funding for maternal and child health
as well as family planning.<br><br>
Meanwhile, more than half a million women worldwide will die this year
from the complications of pregnancy and childbirth, including 68,000 from
illegal and unsafe abortions. According to The Lancet, "an estimated
90% of deaths from unsafe abortions and 20% of obstetric mortality could
be avoided with improved access to contraception. Yet the latest figures
show that donor funding for family planning has decreased by
36%."<br><br>
It is particularly ironic that the supposedly liberated women of
Afghanistan suffer the second highest maternal mortality rate in the
world with 1,600 deaths per 100,000 live births. In the U.S. more than 20
million women live in poverty and out of 173 countries, the U.S. is one
of only five countries that has no guaranteed maternity leave. The U.S.
is also one of only seven countries that has not ratified the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW).<br><br>
The ongoing militarism that plagues our planet is also extremely
detrimental to women. Violence during war and conflict is not incidental,
it is systemic. Rape, a cheap alternative to bullets, has always been a
de facto weapon of war. Women who are raped during conflict are
particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Conflict frequently leaves women
without homes, food and medical care and many become refugees. Obtaining
work may become difficult, forcing many women into prostitution in order
to survive. Hundreds of thousands of women are sexually trafficked every
year and violence makes it impossible for hundreds of thousands of girls
to attend school.<br><br>
Pollution is also an important problem for women. Recent studies have
found numerous toxins in breast milk and one out of six women in the U.S.
has enough mercury in their wombs to cause mental retardation, autism and
other diseases. Women who breathe polluted air are four times more likely
to have children who develop cancer. Other pollutants such as PCBs,
dioxin and DDT are known to impact reproductive health and have been
linked to breast cancer. Chemical and nuclear weapons impact women's
reproductive health, causing low birth weights and gross birth
abnormalities.<br><br>
It is for all of these reasons that on March 8th, we once again affirm
the human rights of women throughout the world as well as celebrate their
lives and accomplishments.<br><br>
*This essay is adapted from commentary by the author that was originally
published by the <a href="http://www.leoweekly.com/">Louisville Eccentric
Observer</a>. "We Stand with the Women of the World" is the
theme for the 2007 Louisville, Kentucky/US observance of IWD.<br><br>
<b>Lucinda Marshall</b> is a feminist artist, writer and activist. She is
the Founder of the Feminist Peace Network,
<a href="http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/">
www.feministpeacenetwork.org</a>.<br><br>
**************************************************************************************<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>For International
Working Women’s Day<br>
and Women’s History Month, March, 2007<br>
<br>
</font><div align="center"><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><b>
A TIME FOR MILITANT
SISTERHOOD!</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>
<br>
</div>
<br>
<br>
With over 3000 US troops killed and close to 50,000 wounded; with
nearly a million Iraqis slaughtered and half-a-dozen wars percolating in
hitherto peaceful places, this year’s commemoration of International
Working Women’s Day and Women’s History Month can only be a call to forge
even stronger bonds of militant sisterhood against imperialism and for
women’s and people’s liberation. <br>
<br>
Over and over again, we have been assured that this or that method would
bring the war in Iraq to a successful conclusion. But the maimed
and the dead continue to increase, while much-needed resources in the
billions of dollars are wasted in “reconstruction projects” which are
never completed; in war materiel destroyed, and in natural wealth
polluted and damaged. After the unleashing of a sea of blood in
Afghanistan, Iraq and half-a-dozen other places, the Minotaur of war
remains insatiate. This is The Plan: an endless state of war,
a war that spans more and more countries; a war without
resolution. And in the chaos, death and destruction, imperialism’s
multinational corporations, from Halliburton to Black Water, continue to
extract profits, enriching the few in the deaths and injury of the
many. <br>
<br>
Even as imperialism renders uninhabitable various places in the world
through wars, pillage and pollution, it strokes xenophobia within the
United States, the better to exploit the vulnerability of undocumented
workers. Majority of the 12 million undocumented workers in this
country are women and children; 20% of them are employed in private
households, as housekeepers, nannies, cooks. They are allies of
American women in the defense of the American family which is embattled
by imperialism’s desire to isolate, atomize and separate the individual
from the group, the group from the collective, the collective from
society. <br>
<br>
Let it be our task for this 8<sup>th</sup> of March to show the
world how strongly we reject imperialism’s culture of violence, its
culture of exploitation, its culture of destroying the social nature of
humankind itself. Let us prepare to descend upon Washington DC on
the 17<sup>th</sup> of this month, to protest the war in Iraq, the war in
Haiti, the war in the Philippines, the war in Palestine… Let us
march mantled by grief for our sisters and brothers in those countries;
let us march waving the banner of our outrage at the continuing deceit
and lies; let us march in condemnation of all the wars of
imperialism; let us march in condemnation of US-led
imperialism itself. <br>
<br>
JOIN THE MARCH 17<sup>TH</sup> MOBILIZATION AGAINST THE WAR!
<br>
<br>
<a href="mailto:wailcentral@yahoo.com">wailcentral@yahoo.com</a> <br>
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