March 8th was international women
day and I couldn’t help but think how the progress that has been made when it
comes to women right. This train of thoughts was sparked well before that day,
more specifically the weekend leading to the international women’s day week,
when laying down on my couch I was watching the suffragette. This movie is a
British historical period drama that narrates the fight of the first feminism
group, Suffragettes (hence the name of the movie) requesting a right to
exercise their voting power just as men.
This movement started in 1897
with the foundation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage with led by
Millicent Fawcett. Like any good leader, Millicent Fawcett believed in peaceful
protest and in the power of words to make changes happen and obtain the
right to vote she and many other women believe they deserved. Although her approach was noble, it made other women grow angry and
frustrated as progress too long to be noticed. So Emmeline Pankhurst and
her daughters Christabel and Sylvia founded in 1903 the Women’s Social and
Political Union which later became better known as The Suffragettes. 
Unlike Millicent, the Suffragettes
were ready to use any means to make their voices heard as long as in the long
rung they obtained what they were fighting for: Voting rights. What started as a
peaceful movement rapidly turned a radical movement and the violence
used by the authorities certainly did not make them back down. In 1912, the suffragette started
using extreme measures to force change: they started burning churches, attacking
politicians and bombing their houses. One of the suffragettes, Emily Wilding Davidson, threw herself under King Ander’s Horse on June 9th 1913 as a desperate act to get the world's attention, thus becoming the first Suffragette martyr. It is only in 1918 that the Representation of the People
Act was passed by the British Parliament, granting women limited suffrage (only women over 30 could
vote) and ten years later (1928) the right to vote on an equal basis with men.
Protests like this one to give women more rights were
organized around the world by leaders and feminists who did not shy away when facing
obstacles. They sacrificed everything they had and sometimes their lives so that the
upcoming generations could have what they didn’t have. But even with that, there are
still some disturbing facts that are worth mentioning and here are a few of them:
- Every 90 seconds, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth. Most of these deaths are preventable, but due to gender-based discrimination many women are not given the proper education or care they need.
- As many as 1 in 4 women experience physical or sexual violence during pregnancy.
- Women make up 80% of all refugees and displaced people. Instruments of genocide such as sexual violence and rape are often directed at women and girls.
- Women account for 70% of the population living in absolute poverty (on less than $1.00 a day).
- Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18.
- 603 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not yet considered a crime.
Let’s
not also forget about the girls who aren’t in school because of gender discrimination; those who don’t have
access to the most basic things such as hygienic pads when they have their
periods and are excluded from their communities during their "week of shame". Let’s not forget
about the pay gap which does not seem to get any smaller despite all the
efforts being made. Let’s also not forget about sexual harassment at work and
all those things that the world doesn’t seem to see.
We have come a long way and at the light of the progress that has been made, I can't help but take pride in being a
woman who is educated, part of a field largely dominated by men, who can
training BJJ, who just beat the odds that some of my female peers did not. And if
nothing else motivates me in life, this will always motivate me and make me
want to be the best and give my best because I am at a place where not many can
say they are at and I am blessed. And if you are a woman you should feel that way too because no matter where each one of us stand in life, we have had to face hurdles and fight battles that brought us where we are and made us who we are today and we have come a long way.
This article is an acknowledgement and celebration of the people who before us traced a
better route so that we could walk on it, remembering all that has been done.
Let’s make sure that we don’t just stop and let it be it but instead, let's keep
making that route better too for future generations and pass on that legacy.
Let’s allow our deeds to change the world and build upon the strong foundations that have already been laid out for us in such as way that we can provide more opportunities for women to
become accomplished leaders, scientists, artists or whatever they want to be
because they have the right to, but mostly because they can afford it.
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