Happy International Women's Day

Today (March 8th) is International Women's Day!

The 'official' website lists an explanation and the history of International Women's Day. I encourage you to check it out.

Infoplease lists some of the issues often focused on during IWD, such as

• About 25,000 brides are burned to death each year in India because of insufficient dowries. The groom's family will set the bride on fire, presenting it as an accident or suicide. The groom is then free to remarry.
  
  
• In a number of countries, women who have been raped are sometimes killed by their own families to preserve the family's honor. Honor killings have been reported in Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other Persian Gulf countries.
  
  
• According to the World Health Organization, 85 million to 115 million girls and women have undergone some form of female genital mutilation. Today, this practice is carried out in 28 African countries, despite the fact that it is outlawed in a number of these nations.
  
  
• Rape as a weapon of war has been used in Chiapas, Mexico; Rwanda, Kuwait, Haiti, Colombia, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere.

Take a few minutes and think about the state of women where you live. Compare and contrast it with the situations listed above. How does that make you feel? Do you feel that you can facilitate change?