Happy International Women's Day

Being a woman means such different things around the globe. I was just reading some women's magazine where a known personality lamented how feminism has gone so far that "women even look like men". Or conversely, we can discuss the "women's pound", and agree that, after all, men and women aren't equal at least not in the work place. Even though Finland ranks as 2nd of all countries in the world closest to closing its gender gap, there is still a lot of work to do. (UK doesn't make the top 10.)

Not every country is ready to discuss the work place when talk turns to equality between the sexes. Turning the globe a little and we get to abhorrent events such as depicted in India's daughter. At least the men got convicted. Not every case turns that way. It isn't an alien concept in anywhere in the world that somehow the woman can be blamed for actions against her, however wrong that seems under a European moral code. 

A news story already from early February in our local newspaper caught my eye: Brunei women are told to cover themselves. Dk Norhayati Pg Hj Md Kasran from the Islamic Da’wah Centre said not wearing revealing clothes is one of the ways women are protected in Islam. This is a message from a modern day Women's Forum in Brunei: "Loose clothing prevents unwanted attention." What should we think to that? That the Indian rapist was right in his message in the BBC documentary if you ask locals here? (There are some gems about marriage too from this forum... But that's another story.) 

There isn't a moral in this story. It's just to remind ourselves that women all around the world deserve a day to be celebrated. It's just a shame that they don't seemingly deserve the same rights.