International Women's Day (And Why I'm Slighly Against It)

These Sunday/Monday once a week blog posts are beginning to become my thing. And they'll probably be my thing for the next few months, but hopefully eventually this phase will come to an end. I'm just doing a ton of things at the moment and soccer is literally and figuratively consuming my life (it's a good thing I really love it), but I'm slightly taking pride in the fact that I'm still posting at least weekly instead of dropping this little old thing for a few months and re-starting during a less busier time.

Anyways.

I've got a good bit of well thought out blog posts and stories and opinions and ideas sitting in the drafts tab but these posts require a lot of attention and typing and a good chunk of time that I must fully devote to writing which I don't often have. Somewhere along the lines I'll get to them and things may or may not become normal. Fingers crossed normal comes before I lose my sanity.

We got snow. Not at a lot, but snow nonethless.

Saturday was International Women's Day, which I slightly thought about not mentioning. We have the International Day of the Girl (which I totally wrote about here) and International Women's Day and rallys and movements and topless book clubs all trying to desexualize and bring equality to the women population, aka everything I stand for. Yet, when I found out there was a day devoted just for women, I was slightly irritated in a way I'm almost ashamed of.

I wondered to myself if this was just another holiday that was "nationalized" by a group of upperclass white men in Congress who didn't want to be seen as sexist. I wondered if it was just a day where men can make fun of women and our movement a little extra (believe me as it did indeed happened, I saw numerous examples on Twitter). I wondered if by singling out and bringing attention to women, we were only creating an opposite enviroment that we wanted.

Don't get me wrong, I was all for the International Day of the Girl, but the more I thought about this in our world of holidays, I wondered if this day had lost its purpose in the Facebook statuses and blog posts where every woman was suddenly a feminist. It seemed like a day where we could all simply tweet about how great it was to be a woman. It seemed like a day where all of a sudden men cared about how we get less than equal pay or even worse they saw it as an opportunity to deface our project even more.

Then out of nowhere, what seemed like a huge accomplishment for women everywhere (as having our own holiday is pretty fantastic), had lost its meaning. I didn't see much on the news about how the female population seized the day and broke down barriers and put funds into organizations that would bring equality to our gender.

And I'm sure it did happened. I'm sure women took the opportunity and made things happen. Great things and glorious things and fantastic things. And I'm going to be totally open with you all, I didn't do anything. It seems hyporcritcal for me to sit here bashing women who simply posted a status while I did nothing, but I hope this post is my something. I hope this challenges everyone to take every day and opportunity to embrace women. Let's make everyday International Women's Day.

As I read my Day of the Girl post from a few months ago I came across something I had written that puts my current feelings into words:

"It's almost sad that we need a day to celebrate us. Every day should be spent empowering girls and bringing hope to those who feel limited by their gender."

I guess I'm slightly pissed that it's taking an international holiday to get people jazzed about women's rights. Nonetheless, I'm grateful we have overcome enough within our male orientated society to get this kind of appreciation and honor. I just wish everyone didn't hop off the bandwagon so quickly.

Have a fabulous day.

P.S. Any other bloggers out there have ideas for regularly getting blog posts published? Maybe at some point after this time lacking hiatus finishes I too can be the knowledgable one in this area and could beautifully weave together the numerous tips and tricks I will possess into a blog post. Until then, I need some help. It would be greatly appreciated and embraced and loved and used. Thanks.

Periods and Poverty {Don't Ask, Just Read}

I keep unknowingly putting off reading blog posts until it's an unusually empty Saturday morning where I try to read a week and a half of blog posts in one sitting (which fyi isn't exactly possible when you follow numerous blogs). But here I am (or was since I wrote this on Saturday), still behind on reading posts, but I'm down to two day old posts which is quite the accomplishment.

I also keep swearing to myself that I'll write something really fascinating on here, but I'm still waiting for that to happen. I keep making a list of books to read on my phone as well, yet that hasn't happened either. I'm dreaming of writing more in the book that may never get finished, but I'm hoping spring break will provide such a time. But I am listening to music and getting lost in the abyss of the Internet which is always fun.

I'm a little too intrigued in conspiracy theories at the moment after an AP government class turned into copious amounts of "whose really behind 9/11" and "did we really land on the moon first". I'm interested in finding a book written on such theories so if anyone has any suggestions, throw 'em at me (I'll be sure to put them on my list of books to read).

I'm also taking a new interest in politics and the Beatles. An unlikely combination in the least. 

On an interesting side note, after getting sucked into one blog post followed by link after link after link I learned a few intriguing things about African girls and as one woman to the next, I couldn't possibly ignore not sharing what I stumbled upon. 

It's common knowledge that children in Africa don't receive the education that they rightfully need and just as well known that girls face an even more disadvantage because of the inadequacy of resources and lack of value that's placed upon them as females among other things. But surprise surprise there is one simple item that is putting the barrier between African girls and education that one might not know: pads. Sanitary napkins, feminine products, however we want to say it (we're all girls women here).

Did you know that only 40% of girls enrolled in primary one finish primary seven opposed to 70% of boys who do? How about the fact that 155 girls in every village drop out of school because they can't afford nor are properly educated on the use of sanitary napkins. Girls simply skip school for four to seven days at a time to take care of this common woman ailment. Four to seven days every month adds up to multiple missed tests and assignments and weeks of valuable education. Most girls drop out because they simply can't keep up. 

All this over pads. Who even knew.

And I'm not going to ask you to donate to some organization because let's face it, we're all young and don't have paypal accounts and money upon money to give away. This is all just knowledge. Food for thought. Something to let your mind wrap around.

A cause to let your feminist self vegetate on.

It's been a fun weekend and I can only hope you can say the same. Do some laundry and read a book and watch the Oscars before you go back to no sleep and a work load that you didn't even think was possible.

Have a fabulous day.