Opinion: Cynical me eyerolls at the mention of another ‘day of’ day. There are more than 100 UN mandated days. World Post Day shares October 7 with World Cotton Day in case you were wondering. Though International Jazz Day (April 30) sounds fun and these ‘days of’ provide a 12-hour focus on meaningful causes, I question if they achieve anything.
My cynicism peaks around March 8, International Women’s Day. I appreciate many organisations use the day to celebrate their female workers with a morning tea and social media posts, but I’d rather they fixed their gender pay gaps before they did so.
I am particularly uneasy this year because the theme is #inspireinclusion and #investinwomen (depending on which website you go to).
Some of us will pop our lippy on and go to lovely breakfasts, morning teas and lunches, the time off to attend mandated and paid for by our workplaces. Others will self-fund but have the spare cash and time to do so.
Perhaps International Women’s Day should be renamed International Not All Women’s Day because many women won’t get the luxury of time off and won’t even get a cupcake.
This is particularly stark for me as I am lucky enough to chair the Wellington Homeless Women’s Trust. We provide short-term housing and wraparound support for 14 women and ongoing support long after they move out.
The women who stay with us should be celebrated for what they have survived: abuse from an early age, continual discrimination and poverty often leading to mental health problems and addiction, often left untreated for decades.
In our whare, we can make sure they get an International Women’s Day morning tea, probably the first they have had. I wonder how many know there is a day set aside each year to celebrate them.
The women who stay with us each year represent only a handful of the 50,000 homeless women in our country (at last census count).
Many sleep in cars or on couches to protect themselves from the risks of sleeping rough. They return to abusive relationships for their kids or because it’s safer than the alternative. Older women are priced out of the housing market, which doesn’t meet their incomes or needs.
Women comprise 50 percent of the homeless population yet receive disproportionately fewer of the services designed for the homeless. There is no gender data routinely gathered by government agencies and women get only a passing mention in the country’s Homelessness Action Plan.
That’s why the Coalition to End Women’s Homelessness coalesced and is pushing for change this International Women’s Day in four areas: that gender analysis is done on all housing policies to make sure they work for women and men; government agencies start to routinely gather data on women’s homelessness and housing needs; that specific housing initiatives for women are delivered, and women (especially wahine Māori) are involved in decision-making.
Maybe then we can in good conscious say we #inspireinclusion and #investinwomen this International Women’s Day and can happily pour ourselves another cuppa to celebrate.
Jo, your post is very much appreciated.
Violence is being condoned or at least downplayed in significance, by our justice system. An older woman was violently attacked, in public where all could see. Her injuries are evident. And yet the perpetrator, a young adult male, is let off with a small fine and permanent name suppression. The message being delivered to all of NZ right now is that violence against women is a relatively minor offence.
“The New Zealand Crime and Victims survey, an annual collection of information on New Zealanders’ experience of crime, found in their most recent report (November 2021 – November 2022) that 24% of New Zealand women have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV) offences during their lifetimes.” https://www.women.govt.nz/womens-safety/violence-against-women
This will only change when acts of violence are recognised and acknowledged as such, and when justice is done and is seen to be done.
Thank you Joe! It is so easy for me ( and probably others ) to respond in a positive way when I read about the way firms are recognising International Women’s Day without asking the question, “has anything changed?” We need journalists like yourself who we can trust to answer that question for us. I suspect that with other disadvantage groups, e.g. Unemployed, Maori, and
elderly, where words and actions look good on the surface. We need to ask the question, “Have the fine words and actions resulted in any real change for the disadvantaged groups in our society?