When Women Want More!

A few weeks back, I was talking to a friend, a father who, when he reads fairy tales to his young daughter, changes the ending in each one. Instead of marrying handsome princes, each woman in his daughter’s fairy tales becomes a lawyer for Amnesty International, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, or a musician playing packed houses – or some other independent, intelligent, powerful woman.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this conversation and feel hopeful that not only his daughter, but all women, will be able to see their lives as ones of opportunity.

We live in a time, and, here, in the United States, a society, that gives women unprecedented opportunities. For the first time in our political history, we have a female running as a serious contender for president. We also live in a time where we have articles like the one I recently read in the Atlantic Monthly, aptly titled, “Marry Him – The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” This article, a microcosm of attitudes that hold women, all women, back, reduces women to little more than objects that put childbirth, and marriage, ahead of all other goals. And that simply is not the case.

International Women’s Day marks the achievements, successes, and power of women, today and throughout history. Right here at UUSC, I hear stories every day of powerful women accomplishing great things. There is the story of Serafina, a 71-year-old grandmother in South Africa who fought both the police and the South African government for her right to equal access to water. Or there is UUSC’s female on-the-ground consultant in Darfur, who is training men about issues of gender-based violence, helping them become leaders in the struggle for women’s rights. There are the leaders of the Rock Women Group in Kenya, amazing women working to improve both their own lives and the lives of children in the slums of Nairobi. There are the women unionists of STITCH in Guatemala, leaders in a movement for economic equality for women.

In a society, and a world, where some would have women reduced to little more than child-bearing entities, often at painfully early ages – International Women’s Day is a big deal. It tells women that they can do, and be, anything they want – be that a mother, lawyer, doctor, musician, political leader, teacher, or, likely, some combination of roles. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s choices – choices that UUSC works every day to grow, in number and in kind.