PARIS, March 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Protests, strikes and studies — people
around the globe are taking action to mark International Women’s Day and to
push for action to obtain equality.
Here are some of the events:
– Strikes and tear gas –
In Turkey authorities sought to quash Women’s Day demonstrations on Friday,
with police firing tear gas to disperse a sea of demonstrators at the
entrance of the city’s main pedestrianised shopping street Istiklal Avenue.
Protesters had gathered at the central avenue despite a ban on their
protest, with crowds chanting slogans including: “We are not silent, we are
not scared, we are not obeying.”
They were blocked by police in riot gear, who then used tear gas and dogs
to disperse them.
Across Spain, women downed tools in a strike for equality, a mass movement
which drew in female employees from across the spectrum, from nuns to
journalists and even the mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena. Authorities said
more than half a million people took part in Women’s Day protests in Madrid
and Barcelona.
In France, thousands of people took to the streets to mark the day, with
demonstrators in Paris carrying banners with slogans including “Equal pay,
equal work” and “we will never be silent again”.
– Thousands protest Duterte misogyny –
About 4,000 demonstrators marched through Manila chanting slogans against
President Rodrigo Duterte, who has repeatedly made jokes about rape and last
year admitted indecently touching the family maid when he was a teenager.
Aides brushed off his comments as jokes, but activists have denounced his
“misogynistic” statements as “unacceptable, pointing to statistics showing a
153 percent increase in rape from the decade before he was elected.
With one woman or child raped in the Philippines every hour, activists
aiming to raise awareness about gender-based violence staged an exhibition of
clothes worn by victims, called ‘Don’t tell me how to Dress’.
– Mourning murdered women –
In Mexico, demonstrators held marches and staged a series of performances
with graphic depictions of domestic abuse in Ecatepec, a town one hour
outside Mexico City known as a flashpoint for violence against women.
Mexico State, where Ecatepec is located, led the country in femicides in
2017, with 301 women and girls murdered, according to official figures.
“It makes me sad to wake up every day and see in the news that another
(woman) has disappeared, another body has been found. It makes me sad to
realize I’m very vulnerable as a woman and that I never know if I’m going to
make it home,” Fernanda Pando, 23, a recent graduate in psychology who has
lived her whole life in the town, told AFP.
– Flowers for mums and wives –
In Pyongyang, Flower Shop No. 5 did a brisk trade in flowers on
International Women’s Day, which is a public holiday in North Korea, as a
steady stream of customers turned up to buy blooms for their wives, mothers
and significant others.
As the North’s founder Kim Il Sung once said: “In our country, women are in
charge of one of the wheels of the revolution.”
– Do more at home, UN tells men –
Of all the factors blocking equality in employment, the biggest is the
heavy burden of caregiving borne by women, a UN report has found, saying the
pace of change will only change if men take on far more unpaid tasks at home.
“In the last 20 years, the amount of time women spent on unpaid care and
domestic work has hardly fallen, and men’s has increased by just eight
minutes a day,” said Manuela Tomei of the UN’s International Labour
Organization.
Globally, women perform more than three-quarters of the total time spent on
unpaid care work, averaging four hours and 25 minutes per day, while men only
do one hour and 23 minutes.
“The imbalanced division of work within the household between men and women
is one of the most resilient features of gender inequality,” the report said.
– Designed with a gender bias? –
Women’s lives are impacted every day by a built-in “gender data gap” that
touches everything from urban life to design, says a new book called
“Invisible Women”.
British author Caroline Criado Perez says it is the story of “what happens
when we forget to account for half of humanity”, citing examples which range
from slight irritations to life-threatening situations.
From cars designed using crash-test dummies based on the average male, to
doctors misdiagnosing women suffering a heart attack because their symptoms
differ from those of men, the bias pervades modern society, and can have
fatal consequences, she said.
Even consumer products are often male-centric with voice recognition
software far more likely to accurately recognise men’s speech, and mobile
phones often too large for women’s hands. “Designers may believe they are
making products for everyone, but in reality they are mainly making them for
men.”
– In the director’s chair, but paid less –
The number of films directed by women has risen steadily in France over the
past decade, but there remains significant inequality, notably in salaries, a
study by the French film council says.
Back in 2008, just 43 films were made by women, but in 2017, that figure
rose to 70. Women directors were also more active in France than in other
European countries, making 370 films between 2012-2017, compared with 242 in
Germany and 87 in the UK.
But wages were notably lower, with women directors earning on average 42.3
percent less than their male counterparts.
– Oz takes aim at sexist campervans –
Australia’s government used International Women’s Day to take aim at Wicked
Campers, a “misogynistic” campervan firm known for its fleet of vehicles
spray-painted with crude, sexist graffiti and slogans, which have sparked
outrage.
“We have no tolerance for sexist, misogynistic and offensive slogans on
campervans,” said Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer, while Transport Minister
Michael McCormack said they “belong in a junkyard, not on Australian roads.”
– ‘Peace is born of women’ –
Pope Francis praised women as the source of peace, hailing their
contribution to building a world “that can be a home for all”.
“Women make the world beautiful, they protect it and keep it alive. They
bring the grace of renewal, the embrace of inclusion, and the courage to give
of oneself,” he said.
“Peace, then, is born of women, it arises and is rekindled by the
tenderness of mothers. Thus the dream of peace becomes a reality when we look
towards women… If we dream of a future peace, we need to give space to
women.”
– Cameroon activist wins French prize –
France awarded the first Simone Veil Prize to Aissa Doumara Ngatansou, a
Cameroonian woman who has spent 20 years helping victims of rape and forced
marriages.
On receiving the 100,000-euro prize ($112,000) Doumara dedicated it to “all
women victims of violence and forced marriages” and to those who had escaped
the clutches of Boko Haram, the jihadist movement which emerged in Nigeria a
decade ago and has terrorised the region.
– Abuse affects one in three –
Figures released in an OECD report showed that one in three women have
suffered from domestic abuse. But since its last report in 2014, another 15
countries have adopted laws against domestic violence, meaning 132 countries
criminalise it while 48 do not, it said.
In a second report, the OECD found that addressing gender inequalities and
encouraging women’s participation in the workforce could boost the global
economy by $6 trillion, or 7.5 percent of GDP.