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International Women's Day: "Woman"
“Woman”. That word scares me a bit. I don’t know what it means to be a woman. No, wait. Scratch that. I do know what it means to be a woman. But I don’t fit. Years ago, I was writing a weekly column for a newspaper. One day, someone asked me if I was a feminist. The question stumped me. I knew I was all for equality but I had never really bothered with the concept of feminism before. I knew the very definition of it had altered so fast over three decades. But this was a good idea for a column and hey, those were in short supply. So I…
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International Women's Day: And the backlash has started…
Note: This is my second attempt at writing this so it isn’t as wonderful as the first one was. Also these articles were originally posted as part of the blogging challenge for International Women’s Day on Emergen. It’s almost half past eight. Most of my friends have now woken up and headed off to work and have logged on to at the very least wish each other “Happy IWD day”. I’d like to think that they knew about the date and event because I’ve been harping on about it on FB for awhile. But as with anyone supporting any cause, there is a backlash. There have been a few negative…
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International Women's Day: What do we talk about?
When the invitation was waved in front of my nose, to blog for International Women’s Day (if I hadn’t jumped in willingly, I am sure Janine Ripper would have twisted my arm or blackmailed me somehow), I was excited but I felt at a loss. I don’t think gender should be an issue – as in that it is such an accepted part of life that it ceases to be part of what identifies you unless you wish it to be. And so, I wondered, “What am I going to discuss?” especially as I see a lot of issues as being human issues, complicated, yes, by gender inequality and…
