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Gentlemen — Please Champion Equality All Year, Not Just on International Women’s Day
All weekend, I kept seeing reposts and forwards and memes from men about International Women’s Day. Friends, acquaintances, influencers, and celebrities uploaded or reshared nice enough sentiments, heavy on the flowers and cursive. A few male friends sent me DMs to acknowledge the occasion.
So why did I feel … annoyed? Frustrated?
Because most of the men who posted or messaged me are radio silent the rest of the year about every issue that jeopardizes the safety, equality, and peace of women and girls around the world.
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, please let me ask you gentlemen a question.
Why did you only post about women, women’s accomplishments, or women’s obstacles once in the whole year?
We, and our struggles, exist all year long.
Thank you for the meme, but we need your time and energy too. And we need it throughout the year. Every year.
Once-a-year posts obviously don’t make you a sexist or a misogynist. But when women have to divert so much of our precious time and energy to: protecting ourselves; fighting for our safety, education, compensation, promotions, voting rights, and healthcare; dismantling systems we didn’t build; and…
