Apologies for the delay, but Lady Finger editors were so busy celebrating International Women's Day yesterday that we skipped blogging about it. So here we are today, with yesterday's roundup:
International Women's Day has its origins in the early 20th century women's rights movement in the United States, an irony because the U.S. does not officially recognize it as a holiday. (China, Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, on the other hand, do.) The holiday was envisioned as a day for women to make their political demands, but today it has morphed into a celebration of feminism and its achievements and goals, and also a recognition of individual women and their contributions to their families (kind of like Mother's Day).
Barack and Michelle Obama spoke about the holiday (view their speeches below), with Barack subtly commending Hillary Clinton for her effort to win the presidency and Michelle saying, "We honor women who refused to listen to those who would say that you couldn’t or shouldn’t pursue your dreams. And we honor women who may not have had many opportunities in their own lives, and we all know women like that: Women who poured everything they had into making sure that their daughters and their granddaughters could pursue their dreams; women who, as the poet Alice Walker once wrote, 'knew what we must know without knowing it themselves.'"
Over at Jezebel, you can view a very touching slideshow with photos of women celebrating the globe over. And RH Reality Check has a wonderful roundup of its own, highlighting friends' and contributors' favorite books about women's equality. Gender Across Borders also has a comprehensive list of relevant blogs. -TLF
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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