Day 67 -- strength and equality

Since 1977, March 8 has been International Women's Day, a day to advocate women's rights and celebrate freedoms. After the social and political actions of the 1960s, the UN designated 1977 as the first International Year of Women and the annual day began about that time.

This is a day to reflect on all that we have in our part of the world and recognize the ongoing work to achieve women's rights that still exists throughout the world. On this day I think of several famous women who paved the way for where we are today.  The 'Famous Five,' five strong female leaders from Alberta, worked to convince the Privy Council in Britain that Canadian women should be deemed to be persons under the law. This 1929 decision was a turning point in Canadian constitutional law, allowing women to be persons, and Judge Emily Murphy to be appointed as the first female senator. So -- I'd like to note my thanks to these wonderful women -- Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, Irene Parlby, and Nellie McClung. Prior to this landmark decision, they had been authors, social reformers, suffragettes, a journalist, a judge, a provincial cabinet minister, the first female MLA in Canada, an artist, and the first female police magistrate in the Commonwealth. Truly women to look up to.

When in the UK last year, I visited the National Portrait Gallery. There, I discovered an amazing photograph of a woman whose name I'd first heard as a child when listening to Mary Poppins <smile> -- Lillian Pankhurst. She and her daughter had been suffragettes for women's right to vote in England. They had been arrested several times. In those days, prisons were worse than our present system, and those for women were inhumane. Women were chained to the walls of the cells for reasons such as this civil disobedience or failing to obey their husbands. If ever at St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, evidence still remains on a small section of stone wall -- chains used in women's detention still hang there. A very sobering sight, indeed. It reminded me of the movie Iron Jawed Angels (Hillary Swank starred in this), which told the story of women's suffrage in the US. It was bleak and harsh and hard to watch in places, but definitely worth the time.

So -- after pondering several songs for today, there really was only one song that fit the theme without casting aspersions at the other sex <smile>. It may be cliche to some, but the words really do say what we are so lucky to be able to say in our neck of the woods. Enjoy!

I am Woman -- Helen Reddy