Honestly, I don't know that I've given much thought to International Women's Day. I'm pretty aware that March is Women's History Month in America, but this day somehow didn't seem to hit my radar much before.
However, in Brazil, it's a little bit bigger. We were sent an email to wear purple to work this past Friday (since it's on March 8th which is a Sunday), as symbolism for equality. So I just happen to have a sparkly striped purple shirt, and I did indeed wear it. Most of the people, men and women wore purple too. That's about all I noticed here in relation to it, but maybe I'll see more tomorrow on the actual day (I'll be sure to keep you posted, so don't worry.). Anyway, the point is tomorrow is International Women's Day.
After wikipedia-ing it I learned that it's celebrated differently in different countries, with some of them using it as a general appreciation-for-women-day that lies somewhere between Valentine's day and Mother's day, which seems nice because there's probably lots of chocolate involved, but I think on a practical note I prefer the more social/political focus other countries take.
The theme of this year's IWD, taken from the "global hub for sharing International Women's Day News and Resources," is below - with the official hashtag #MakeItHappen
Make It Happen is the 2015 theme for our internationalwomensday.com global hub, encouraging effective action for advancing and recognising women.Even though they spelled recognizing in an incredibly unAmerican way, I still like it. Simple but effective. There are plenty of things that need to be done for female equality and empowerment throughout the world, so let's #MakeItHappen ya'll!
In that spirit, I will throw out some action items (I have a corporate job - and that's what we do best - action items) for my most favoritist of feminist activisms - orgasm equality.
1 Get acquainted (or get your friends acquainted) with the topic of orgasm equality. In honor of International Women's Day, we made a special promotion code for streaming Science, Sex and the Ladies through Vimeo On Demand. Use the promo code: makeithappen and you can get the movie for 99 cents. I swear we tried to make it free, but VOD won't let you make it for less than 99...so that's the best we could do on short notice. Find it HERE.
2 Take some time to consider what the media, cultural norms, and pop science is telling you, your sisters, your friends, your daughters and your nieces about when and how you should and could orgasm. Think about how realistic these expectations are, and how they affected you as you started to become sexually active (both with yourself and possibly with other people). Think about what you wish you had known and what you still wish you knew. I don't know what this may or may not mean to you, but the personal is political in this case, and the first step to moving our culture forward with something so deeply personal is to start considering it more intentionally.
3 Talk about the clitoris. Even if you have some disagreement with me that all known orgasms in women originate from some type of intentional/unintentional, direct/indirect stimulation of the clitoral glans, I hope we can at least agree it's an uncontroversial statement that stimulation of the clitoral glans is the only way to orgasm for the vast majority of women (at least 70%) and an important way to orgasm for even more than that.
The clitoris is important to female orgasm, and it simply doesn't get the love that it deserves - not in porn, not in sexual education, not in movies, not in many, many sexual interactions. So, talk about it to your sons and daughters, to your partners, to your friends, and also to yourself...if you know what I mean ;)
Female empowerment is human empowerment, am I right?!! #MakeItHappen
P.S. In case you were wondering - the UN's focus for the day is below.
In 2015, International Women’s Day, celebrated globally on 8 March, will highlight the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a historic roadmap signed by 189 governments 20 years ago that sets the agenda for realizing women’s rights. While there have been many achievements since then, many serious gaps remain.
This is the time to uphold women’s achievements, recognize challenges, and focus greater attention on women’s rights and gender equality to mobilize all people to do their part. The Beijing Platform for Action focuses on 12 critical areas of concern, and envisions a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as participating in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.
To this end, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is the clarion call of UN Women’s Beijing+20 campaign “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!” Join governments and activists across the world in commemorating the ground-breaking Conference of 1995. We celebrate the many achievements that have come since then and galvanize action to address the gaps that still remain in making gender equality a reality.
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