BagongPinay - PinayNgayon Highlight - March 2004 - Honoring Women, by Perla Paredes Daly

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Women's History Month

Honoring Women, Their Voices and
Their Roles in History

by Perla Paredes Daly

All over the world, women’s roles in their country’s history have been key. It is only in the last century, that women have insisted and ensured that their voices and their contributions not be erased from the annals of history. Women's Day and Women's History Month have been essential in keeping herstory within history.

Women’s Day and Women's History Month is globally celebrated every March and has been since the 1900s---almost a hundred years! This phenomenal tradition of recognizing the voices of women and the value of their roles began around 1908, when as Spring came around that year, a special day was chosen by the U.S. socialist party to celebrate women's working class contributions to society. Americans were awakening to women’s voting rights and a still young suffrage movement was taking hold in the U.S. The following year, on the last Sunday of February 1909 , women all over the U.S. gathered to honor working women and campaign for their voting rights. In 1911, along with the U.S., an International Women’s Day was being recognized in various countries in Europe on the last Sunday of February. But, there was no official date yet set, that is, not until the world witnessed the power of women's voices in Russia.

“	If women, though, had written all those books, I know that they would read quite differently, For well do women know the blame is wrong. The parts are not apportioned equally, Because the strongest take the largest cut And he who slices it can keep the best.	”
	Christine de Pisan "Letter of the God of Love" (1399)

On March 8, 1917, thousands of Russian women joined the world over in celebrating the holiday and gathered to protest against the rising toll and suffering that WW I was putting their country through. Within a week, protests increasingly flared-up around the country, the Russian Revolution took the country by storm and the Czar abdicated. Witness to the power of women in affecting national history, International Women's Day was observed on that date around the world thereafter.

In the Philippines, women's power has been pivotal in national history, too. For without its women, the Philippines's revolutionary events would never have gained the force needed to change the course of their country’s unfolding saga. We have only to look back and we can see various points in our history such as the efforts of the Katipuneros that gave birth to a Philippine nation at the turn of the century and the non-violent revolution of People Power I of 1986.

To honor our sisters and ourselves as women in history's making, I would like to share with you online resources and links about Women's History Celebration, Women's Day and other info about Philippine women in history and how women are still shaping history today.

Scroll down for the list of links.

2004 © Perla Paredes Daly

Links on Women Holidays and Women's History(Herstory):

Celebrate National Women's Month. The theme for National Women's History Month of March 2004 "Women -- Inspiring Hope and Possibility." Let us continue to honor the hope and sense of possibility that comes to our lives from the inspirational work of women.

You, too, no matter where you are in the world, can honor all women by celebrating Women's History Month or International Women's Day on March 8th. You can also celebrate women's roles all year round. Visit the site of the National Women's History Project for ideas and educational materials. Read the details at NWHP.ORG>>

Filipina Speaks to Women in U.S. a Hundred Years Ago
In 1902, Clemencia Lopez, a Filipina of intelligence, courage, articulateness speaks for love of family and country to women in the United States. She talks of Philippine women's equality and the Filipinos' struggle for independence against U.S. armed forces and occupation. Here are the words of an extraordinary woman who spoke up for her country more than a century ago. Even if it is a hundred years old, we can glean and learn much from her speech and what was going on back then and how it is still relevant to Philippines-U.S. relations today. Click here for the Jim Zwick pages on Clemencia Lopez Speech at Boondocks.Net

Women & Philippines-U.S. Relations
A Hundred Years Ago and Today

Suffrage and Self-Determination: Women in the Debate About Imperialism
By Jim Zwick. Many U.S. suffragists saw themselves as subjects of a "domestic imperialism" that denied them the same political rights that the anti-imperialists were fighting for on behalf of the peoples of the new colonies. Click here for more of that article Go>>

WAIL - Women's Anti-Imperialist League in the U.S.
Necessity brought forth the idea of WAIL. Today's intensive and extensive global expansion of US interests demands a womenâs united front committed to expose and oppose US imperialism. GABNet is organizing a multi-ethnic, multi-sectoral Women's Anti-Imperialist League that galvanizes public awareness, through education and direct action, about imperialism and its impact on women here and around the world. A conference in March 2004 is scheduled. For more information, to volunteer or join the planning committee: WAIL@gabnet.org

Comfort Women Reclaim Their Dignity. From around the world, women and men are celebrating a season of V-Day to end the violence against women. In the Philippines, Rossana Abueva and her partner Monique Wilson, have organized V-Days in the Philippines and all over Asia. This 2004, they are producing a star-studded event in Tokyo to shame the Japanese government into finally apologizing to the 200,000 "comfort women" enslaved and raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II. Eve Ensler, founder of Vagina Monologues is going and they plan to fly in celebrities and as many living comfort women from around the world as they can find--- making a connection between the old comfort women and the "new comfort women"--girls who are sex-trafficked.... (My mother shared this story with me after watching it on TV. I found the link online.) Read the details at vday.org>>

Philippine Women in Politics and Governance. Visit a web site on how how women are active in the course of Philippines history today. Click to Kababaihan.org>>

History Channel Celebrates, too. Visit a web site on how how women are active in the course of Philippines history today. Click here for the History Channel Program Schedule | Video Products.

HBO Films brings you Iron Jawed Angels.
The story of American women's struggle to have a voice in the country they loved. A human look into the lives of suffragist women, their relationships with each other and their families, their losses and their triumphs. Moving work by actors Hilary Swank, Angelica Huston, Bob Gunton, Julia Ormond, Frances O'Connor, director Katja von Garnier, and screenplay by Sally Robinson. Click here for the HBO web page Iron Jawed Angels, the Movie

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