International Women’s Day 2022: Reasons to celebrate!
When the world went into lockdown in March 2020, none of us thought our lives would still be largely isolated two years later. And yet, here we are, preparing to celebrate our second IWD virtually.
The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on women in ways too many to list. Rates of intimate partner abuse have shot through the ceiling because of stay-at-home protocols, while those rules also created barriers for women who needed to access services and supports. Women working on the frontlines in health and elder care and in low-paid but suddenly high-risk jobs in retail sales faced high risks of becoming infected with COVID-19. Other women saw their jobs disappear as the hospitality industry had to limit its operations. Mothers with young children found themselves home schooling for the first time in their lives.
Collectively, we have lost ground that will take years or even decades to regain. Individually, many of us have struggled to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s been a tough two years, which can make it hard to find anything to celebrate on International Women’s Day. But, even as we reflect on what we have lost and what struggles lie ahead, let’s also make space on March 8th to remember what we have accomplished during these two years.
Here are a few things to celebrate:
- We are still here, strong and determined
- The violence against women movement, in Canada and around the world, has survived because we were able to be creative and flexible
- Many of us have found internal resiliencies we didn’t know we had
- Public, and political, awareness about intimate partner abuse has never been greater in Canada
- The federal government has committed to the development and implementation of a National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence, thanks in large measure to a phenomenal grassroots effort led by Women’s Shelters Canada to develop a blueprint to guide those efforts
- All provinces and territories, except Ontario, have signed on to the federal $10/day child care plan
- Changes to the federal Divorce Act and Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act include an expansive definition of family violence, which is now a mandatory consideration when decisions are made about parenting arrangements for children
Let’s also make space on IWD 2022 to look forward with hope, both individual and collective, even as we still live in a world largely driven by a global pandemic.
A great place to start is with the UN Women’s “Beyond COVID 19: A Feminist Plan for Sustainability and Social Justice.”
The Plan acknowledges that we have to learn to live with COVID-19, but that we can emerge from this crisis to “build back better,” and proposes transformative change by forging a new feminist social contract and creating a feminist politics for a post-COVID world. Through such a transformation, says the UN, we can develop an economy that supports women’s livelihoods, put care at the centre of a sustainable and just economy and create gender-just transitions for a sustainable future.
There’s a spot for all of us in a plan like that, and that is something to celebrate on International Women’s Day 2022.