{"id":2203,"date":"2012-03-08T13:38:55","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T13:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/?p=2203"},"modified":"2012-03-08T13:38:55","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T13:38:55","slug":"why-we-should-celebrate-international-womens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/awdf.org\/OldSite\/why-we-should-celebrate-international-womens-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we should celebrate &#8216;International Women&#8217;s Day&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c<em>What\u2019s the point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day<\/em>?\u201d a journalist asked me earlier today. \u201c<em>If there was no point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day would you be interviewing me<\/em>?\u201d was my instinctive response. It\u2019s easy to \u2018rubbish\u2019 events like International Women\u2019s Day but in my opinion marking such occasions (as well as the other occasions in the women\u2019s rights calendar \u2013 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence and World Aids Day for e.g.) are significant because:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a day when women\u2019s rights organisations can collectively organise to celebrate women\u2019s achievements whilst assessing what remains to be done in the struggle for gender equality and social justice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Branding days as \u2018International Women\u2019s Day\u2019 for e.g. focuses the attention of the public, and the media on issues of concern to women. Because of the occasion I have received a number of unsolicited calls from the media wanting my opinion on everything from female genital mutilation to the justification for International Women\u2019s Day. Under normal circumstances I am the one chasing the media to highlight issues of concern to women but the lead up to this day is one of the few occasions where I find the situation reversed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It is a day when feminists and our supporters can celebrate our sisterhood. Yesterday in a twitter exchange my African feminist sister @sheroxlox excitedly said she had a gift for her #Afrifem (#Afrifem is the tag that a number of African feminists have agreed to use as a tag to highlight tweets of interest to other African feminists) sisters on International Women\u2019s Day. I in turn excitedly responded that I also had a gift for my #Afrifem sisters. It may seem a small thing to the wider world but as an African feminist I appreciate having a day where the world chooses to focus attention on the issues that I deal with on a day to day basis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Happy International Women\u2019s Day<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Nana Sekyiamah<\/p>\n<p>Communications Officer, AWDF<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/women-hugging.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2204\" title=\"women hugging\" src=\"http:\/\/www.africlub.net\/awdf\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/women-hugging.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s the point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day?\u201d a journalist asked me earlier today. \u201cIf there was no point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day would you be interviewing me?\u201d was my instinctive response. It\u2019s easy to \u2018rubbish\u2019 events like International Women\u2019s Day but in my opinion marking such occasions (as well as the other occasions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[170,171,172],"class_list":["post-2203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-international-womens-day","tag-iwd","tag-iwd2012"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why we should celebrate &#039;International Women&#039;s Day&#039; - The African Women&#039;s Development Fund (AWDF)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/awdf.org\/OldSite\/why-we-should-celebrate-international-womens-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why we should celebrate &#039;International Women&#039;s Day&#039; - The African Women&#039;s Development Fund (AWDF)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cWhat\u2019s the point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day?\u201d a journalist asked me earlier today. \u201cIf there was no point in celebrating International Women\u2019s Day would you be interviewing me?\u201d was my instinctive response. 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