PARIS: No self-congratulations but calls to action will mark many celebrations of the 40th International Women’s Day on Wednesday, as the fight for equality faces new threats.
Murders of women in Latin America, anti-abortion movements in Europe, and machismo talk from men in power are among the growing concerns that have brought millions of women into the streets of world capitals these past few months to defend their rights.
“March 8 is not only to commemorate suffragettes and to celebrate successes from the past, but more to reflect on the present situation,” said Barbara Nowacka, a Polish politician and representative of the committee “Save Women.”
“There is still a lot to do concerning women’s role in the labor market, society, politics,” she told AFP ahead of the global day highlighting women’s rights started by the UN in 1977.
Some recent developments have feminists worried about such key issues as abortion rights, pay equity and gender-based violence.
In Nowacka’s own country, the ruling conservative party is trying to curtail laws on abortion rights, already among the most restrictive in Europe — one of several signs of rising anti-abortion movements across the continent.
These groups “are uniting, are very present on social media and have political weight,” said Christine Mauget, in charge of international matters at France’s Family Planning agency.
“In 2017, there is still a major problem of machismo,” Mauget added. “It is difficult to move things forward, but we try to prevent them from going backward.”
The worries about women’s rights in the face of sexist male attitudes were on display in the huge women’s marches following the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in late January.
Two million women took to the streets in cities around the globe, especially in Washington, where protesters in pink “pussy hats” voiced their opposition to Trump’s policies and his sometimes sexist and vulgar comments about women seen on videotape during the campaign.
Two days after those marches, Trump acted on his anti-abortion stance when, surrounded by male advisors, he signed a decree banning the financing of international charities that support abortions.
“The problem isn’t abortion but unwanted pregnancies,” said Mauget, calling for more extensive sex education to help prevent such circumstances.
When it comes to women’s pocketbooks, the long-running struggle for equal pay still has a way to go.
Worldwide, women earn on average 23 percent less than men. At that pace it would take 70 years to close the gap, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).
The statistics are also dire regarding violence against women.
According to the UN, about 35 percent of women around the world have been victims of physical or sexual violence. Some 200 million women and girls have been subjected to a form of genital mutilation and 700 million have been married before the age of 18.
All over Latin America in October the movement #NiUnaMenos (“Not one less”) rose up against “femicide” and abuse of women after the brutal murder in Argentina of a teenage girl who was drugged and gang raped.
Ariadna Estevez, a university researcher in Mexico, described the mass women’s movement as “a wake-up call” in the region.
For activists such as Nowacka, the message for women standing up for their rights is: “We feel anger, but we know we are not powerless.”
World marks Women’s Day with rights under attack
World marks Women’s Day with rights under attack
French publisher recalls dictionary over ‘Jewish settler’ reference
- The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks”
- The four books are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said
PARSI: French publisher Hachette on Friday said it had recalled a dictionary that described the Israeli victims of the October 7, 2023 attacks as “Jewish settlers” and promised to review all its textbooks and educational materials.
The Larousse dictionary for 11- to 15-year-old students contained the same phrase as that discovered by an anti-racism body in three revision books, the company told AFP.
The entry in French reads: “In October 2023, following the death of more than 1,200 Jewish settlers in a series of Hamas attacks, Israel decided to tighten its economic blockade and invade a large part of the Gaza Strip, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in the region.”
The worst attack in Israeli history saw militants from the Palestinian Islamist group kill around 1,200 people in settlements close to the Gaza Strip and at a music festival.
“Jewish settlers” is a term used to describe Israelis living on illegally occupied Palestinian land.
The four books, which were immediately withdrawn from sale, are subject to a recall procedure and will be destroyed, Hachette said, promising a “thorough review of its textbooks, educational materials and dictionaries.”
France’s leading publishing group, which came under the control of the ultra-conservative Vincent Bollore at the end of 2023, has begun an internal inquiry “to determine how such an error was made.”
It promised to put in place “a new, strengthened verification process for all its future publications” in these series.
President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that it was “intolerable” that the revision books for the French school leavers’ exam, the baccalaureat, “falsify the facts” about the “terrorist and antisemitic attacks by Hamas.”
“Revisionism has no place in the Republic,” he wrote on X.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, with 251 people taken hostage, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Authorities in Gaza estimate that more than 70,000 people have been killed by Israeli forces during their bombardment of the territory since, while nearly 80 percent of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, according to UN data.
Israeli forces have killed at least 447 Palestinians in Gaza since a ceasefire took effect in October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
