This from Leymah Gwobee, part of a group of mothers ended Liberia’s civil war via non-violent action, including a sex strike:
We were ordinary mothers who decided it was no longer enough to beg for peace. Instead, we came together to demand peace, justice, equality and inclusion in political decision-making. We used our bodies, broken by hunger, poverty, desperation and destitution, to stare down the barrel of the gun.
Fourteen years later, we can comfortably say that we did the unimaginable.
Sobering news of a domestic stabbing in Wolverhampton in the UK on IWD. It is believed a man attacked two women, killing one and critically injuring another before killing himself.
According to Women’s Aid on average two women are killed by their partner or ex-partner every week in England and Wales.
Two people have died following a domestic stabbing at a block of flats, including the attacker, in a Wolverhampton incident that sparked a significant emergency services response including armed police and air ambulances.
Police were called to a block of flats in Leasowes Drive, in the Merry Hill area of the city, at around 9.45am where it is believed a man attacked two women before inflicting stab injuries on himself, West Midlands police said.
Officers used stun grenades as they stormed the flat in a bid to distract and detain the knifeman, the force said.
A woman believed to be in her 30s died at the scene while the male suspect, also believed to be in his 30s, was pronounced dead a short time later, WMP said.
‘Oops, I did it again,” was Maryam Faghihimani’s reaction when the Iranian regime accused her TV show of the horrible crime of promoting women’s rights. She immediately took to Facebook, explaining to her friends that a state news site had also blurred out her bare arms and legs, to protect their honour. “I am humble and proud of those crimes and sin,” she added, “and will continue my efforts.”
Satellite TV is becoming a powerful way for Iranian women to connect with the wider world. Over 70% of Iranian households have satellites to watch international television, and one of the most popular stations is the London-based Manoto TV. A liberal Persian channel with over three million Facebook followers, Manoto airs reality TV, cooking shows – and now, its first ever women’s talk show, a Middle Eastern version of the American smash-hit The View.
The show – Samte No (which translates as New Direction) – is a huge step forward in a country where YouTube and other anti-Islamic websites are blocked and it is banned for women to dance, perform music on stage, ride bikes, watch male sports teams, wear leggings or reject their husband’s sexual advances. “Wearing makeup or even nail polish, you’ll pay a fine,” explains Faghihimani. “Hijab is mandatory and any tight outfits will result in arrest by the moral police.”
She is also the creator of the character Miss Moti who emerged from Kripa’s struggle with weight and whose name means a big woman in Nepali. To mark today she’s highlighting some Miss Moti-vational messages.
Feminists striking, marching and wearing red in solidarity for International Women’s Day today will surely be delighted to hear that US president Donald Trump has tweeted to mark the day.
On International Women's Day, join me in honoring the critical role of women here in America & around the world.
Attacked the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, calling her a “bimbo” incapable of objectivity when there was “blood coming out of her whatever” - widely interpreted as a thinly veiled reference to her menstrual cycle.
This year’s International Women’s Day has huge resonance in Warsaw and across Poland.
Today women have gathered outside the Law and Justice headquarters to protest at continuing discrimination against women and to stand up for women’s reproductive rights.
Polish women attracted worldwide attention in October during the so-called ‘Black Protest’ against a blanket ban on abortion under consideration in the Polish parliament that would have prohibited terminations under almost all circumstances, including of pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.
Whether you have experienced childbirth, or you know someone whose child died after delivery, or you know someone having to raise a disabled child alone, women are sharing stories.
These are not topics you raise at the dinner table at Christmas, but thanks to the abortion bill, people started to talk about them.
It is the first IWM since many Polish women found their voice, and won. There is now a palpable sense that if and when change comes to Poland, it will have been its women that won it.
Actor Jessica Chastain joins an International Women’s Day rally in Warsaw, Poland. Photograph: East News/REX/Shutterstock
The UK government’s department of international development are having a busy International Women’s Day and have made this short video highlighting the work of women who manifest this year’s theme of #BeBoldForChange.
International Development Secretary Priti Patel said:
We all know that women are part of the solution; that women’s participation in education, health, politics and peace building increases the chances of a more prosperous and stable future.
Yet we must also remain alive to the many challenges that still come before girls and women to have an equal part in this story. So we stand with them all, in every way.
Seventeen women have been killed so far this year by their partners or ex-partners in Spain, writes my colleague Sam Jones in Madrid.
The figure means that more women have died as a result of gender-based violence in the first four months of 2017 than died over the course of last year, when the total stood at 11.
Statistics also show that this year has already overtaken 2008 (15 deaths) as the worst year on record for such violence.
The situation has prompted protests and led a group of women to go on a month-long hunger strike in the famous Puerta del Sol square in central Madrid. The strikers ended their protest on Tuesday but vowed to press on with their 25-point plan to tackle gender-based violence.
The German composer Fanny Mendelssohn is finally due to be recognised in Britain as a musician with the talent to match her brother, the more famous Felix, when a piano sonata long attributed to him is performed at lunchtime today. The British premiere of Fanny’s Easter Sonata which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 1pm - is as much a tribute to the German woman, who wrote it 140 years ago, as it is to the many women composers over the ages who have not received the recognition they deserve.
The manuscript of ‘Easter Sonata’ was first identified as being Fanny’s work in 2010, when an American academic, Angela Mace Christian, tracked it down to a private archive in France and had it analysed.
Fanny was only 23 when she wrote it. She had referred to the piece in her diary, including the fact she had played it at home in April 1829. But like most of the 500 works she wrote, it never came to public attention.Pianist Sofya Gulyak will resurrect the work at the Royal College of Music. Fanny’s great great great granddaughter, Shiela Hayman, tells her story in The Guardian today.
In France a “strike” called for by feminist organisations is due to start at 3h40 this afternoon. This is the symbolic time after which French women are considered to work for free when their wages are compared with male colleagues. In Paris there will be a gathering at Place de la République at 2pm followed by a march to Place de l’opera at 5.30. There are protests in cities across France.
But a recent controversy suggests France still has a long way to go before achieving gender equality.
Green party MP Denis Baupin was last year investigated after claims of sexual aggression and harassment against four women. The women were, according to investigators, convincing witnesses, giving “measured declarations that did not change and were corroborated... about events some of which could be considered criminal”. One of the women is a French MP for the Green/Ecology party, one is the party secretary, one a local mayor and one a regional councillor. However, the case was dropped because it was out of time as the alleged harassment happened in the late 1990s.Now, Baupin, 54, has said he is going to sue the women for making “false accusations”.
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