YESTERDAY, WE celebrated International Women's Day. Some (men and women) may well ask what is the necessity for a day extolling only one half of the human race? To understand the significance of this day one must go back into the past, to a time when women's work was under-appreciated and under-paid.
It was the action of women garment workers in New York City in 1908, striking against the degrading and de-humanising conditions in the sweatshops where they worked, which led to protest action and the subsequent proclamation of an International Women's Day. The concept was introduced to Jamaica in 1958, to affirm the role played by our many women of courage who defied the oppressive systems of slavery and colonial times, to stand alongside men in the quest for freedom.
In that spirit, we salute our Nanny of the Maroons, Mary Seacole, Aggie Bernard and many others who contributed in no small measure to the shaping of the nation. We salute the many other women of contemporary times who have become the bedrock of national development. Some are well-known, but most are unsung heroines, toiling to sustain families and to hold together the often-fragile fabric of a contentious and fractured society.
We rejoice in the many women who have broken traditional barriers, entering fields of endeavour where the doors were once closed to them because of gender. Their resounding success has served, however, to bring into sharp focus a new area of concern the falling behind of young males in many areas of development, especially advanced education.
It is to be hoped that while we lament the disproportion of women to men, both in their presence and in their level of achievement in places of higher learning, and consider how to address the imbalance, we may never be tempted to slow the pace of progress for women in some misguided spirit of compensation. Rather, the call must be to spur on young men to be qualified and take their place equally alongside our women, so that together we may have a society of balance and true equity.
Even as we celebrate the achievement of so many women in our society, there is the disquieting knowledge that not every woman can claim to have found equality and access to development.
National labour statistics continue to show that more women than men are unemployed, some 21 per cent of women to 10.3 per cent of men (2001 figures). While the needs of both genders must be addressed, the plight of the women is even more acute when it is considered that a high proportion of households are headed by women, who are often the sole breadwinners. If we are to rejoice fully in the celebration of women, then such an imbalance has to be addressed creatively and urgently.
It is in that spirit that we note with approval the newly-announced initiative of the Japan Women in Development Fund through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for a new $10-million gender training and research project, aimed at strengthening programmes of affirmation for women, especially those most in need. Credit must be given also to the Centre for Gender and Development Studies at the UWI, Mona, for its efforts to expand the gender curriculum content of the university, to provide a base for equal advancement.
The Chinese, ever-wise, are credited with the saying "Women hold up half the sky." If we can achieve a truly just and equitable society, with men equipped and prepared to hold up the other half of the canopy, then we will really have cause for celebration yesterday, today, and other days.
