International Women’s Day: FFF Style

Happy International Women’s Day! Today commemorates the years of astounding efforts that women from all over the world have made in the long and ongoing fight towards women’s liberation. The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “Women in Leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID 19 world.” Women have stood on the frontlines in the battle against COVID 19 serving as front-line health care workers, doctors, caregivers, and scientists, yet globally they are paid 11% less than their male counterparts. Everyone has endured insurmountable hardships and struggles due to COVID 19, but the social and economic fallout that has occurred due to the virus has disproportionately affected women.

Poor and marginalized women are at even greater risk of detriment from COVID 19, in that they are more susceptible to higher transmission rates, fatalities, job loss, and increased violence. According to a recent report released by the UN, the pandemic will push 96 million people into extreme poverty by the end of this year, half of whom are women and girls. This will cause an increase in the gender-poverty gap along with the gender education gap, since more girls will be forced to leave school due to lack of income, therefore making them more vulnerable to teen pregnancy and childhood marriage.

Women leaders across the world have taken it upon themselves to address these pressing issues, calling for Generation Equality, meaning that women deserve the right to all aspects of decision making in their lives, whether that is their right to equal pay, ending all violence against women and girls, and having access to safe and affordable health care services that tailor to their needs. Initiated at the Bejing Women’s Conference 25 years ago, the Generation Equality forum sounded a rallying cry to accelerate reforms for achieving women’s equality by 2030. This year, beginning in Mexico City at the end of March, leaders, visionaries, advocates, entrepreneurs, artists, and activists around the world will convene to discuss ambitious and transformative agendas to further women’s equity across the globe, and look at the ways in which their declarations 25 years ago have failed to be accompanied with action. As the forum for Generation Equality states, “Not a single country today can claim to have achieved gender equality.”

We are united in the truth that all women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

Now more than ever it is imperative that individuals, organizations, and governments alike unite together to come up with solutions in aiding women in recovering from the long-lasting, devastating effects of the pandemic. The UN has identified that economic stimulus in the form of direct payments, microloans, and grants can help relieve the burden of economic fallout, and help in closing the gender poverty gap. Finding Freedom through Friendship has an active microloan project in Egypt and we continue to fund micro-businesses in Guatemala. 

The fight for women’s liberation looks different depending on where one lives and what one’s socioeconomic circumstances may be. Finding Freedom Through Friendship recognizes that each woman’s path towards liberation and empowerment may be paved differently, but we are united in the truth that all women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. We are honored to work alongside women in different parts of the world to help uplift and empower women in every way that we can. As Audre Lorde famously stated, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are different than my own.”