To me, International Women’s Day serves as a spark to a flame of justice, a reminder that we are not yet done, or even close to done in doing that work of gender equity. That women around the world are treated differently, have less opportunities, different access to care, experience misogyny and misogynoir and transmisogyny, and that we all must come together for change.
I think drawing attention to the inequity around gender (although not just around cisgender men and cisgender women, but across ALL genders) is incredibly important. However, I think that sometimes we relegate it to a single day (or even month, like with Black History Month) and then forget about it the rest of the year. I hope, instead, that we can take this day as a starting to recognize all of the work that needs to be done towards equity and justice for all genders, and to keep our passion for this work ignited all year long.
I think that true feminism is intersectional, and takes into account disability, race, sexual orientation, age, class, and a variety of other characteristics. However, often times the women’s rights movement has been co-opted by white, cisgender, middle or upper class non-disabled white women, which leaves out a lot of different groups. As the famous disability justice saying goes, nothing about us without us; if the women’s movement is not intentionally inclusive and centering of the experiences of marginalized women, including women with disabilities, it is nothing.
Shanna Katz Kattari
