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| IDW - photo Shutterstock license |
Our large delegation came to Nicaragua during the height of the U.S.-backed Contra War. More than 60 of us, U.S. women, walked the road from Esteli to San Juan de Limay in order to open the road and allow free travel, because the hope was that the Contra would not attack while citizens of their funding nation were on the road.
As we walked, mothers of assassinated children planted crosses where their children's bodies had been found along the road. "Dangerous" people like teachers, health care workers, pastors, community leaders and such were the victims.
Then we celebrated with a meal with the women of Limay. They told us of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City in March of 1911 when the doors were locked to the factory and 123 women and 23 men died in the fire. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire)
I came to Nicaragua and learned about IWD.
When Sen. Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race, she said that there was gender bias in politics and when a woman brings up sexism then she considered to be "whining". How demeaning!
The degree that women, especially women of color, are dismissed is appalling...as the dismissal of those dying in a factory... most were Italian and Jewish immigrants ages 14 - 23 years of age. .
When women take to the streets, they are not taken seriously. Women are society's backbone and not having them in the highest offices of government is appalling.
Many of you have read about the supposed "dictatorship" in Nicaragua... But what you don't read is that Nicaragua is 5th in the world in gender equality. Nicaragua has already had a woman president and now has a female vice-president and many women are in local government offices and the legislative assembly.
(https://www.weforum.org/reports/gender-gap-2020-report-100-years-pay-equality)
Of course Nicaraguan women deal with sexism, machismo, violence and sometimes murder, but so do women around the world... I can attest to the violence women endure in North Carolina, where we ran a battered women's shelter and a rape crisis line. Unfortunately, men make that horror common place.
I'm proud to be a woman. I studied to be and was a pastor in a time when there were few of us. I was expected to be perfect. I wasn't. But unlike many male pastors, I was criticized and looked down upon when I was different. It was glorious in some ways to be a trail blazer more than 40 years ago, but it was also eye-opening to see the blatant hypocrisy that abounds in the church and heart-breaking to see it in those who claim to have "God's love".
Women are the backbone of families globally. They suffer mightily under the yoke of poverty. They suffer globally from fundamentalism and the powers that be...from being dismissed and belittled, to not being educated, to being raped and beaten, and even to being burned, stoned, and murdered.
Today on this International Women's Day, let's celebrate the achievements we've fought to win, let's grieve the losses women globally endure, and let's pledge to not be silent any longer and to lift up our sisters of all colors and nationalities.
- Kathleen
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