Saturday 6 March 2010

The Honour

International Women's Day is on Monday, and to celebrate, our town had its annual IWD event to add the names of exemplary local women to its Honour Roll. In this photo, midwife Sally McCrae is accepting her honour. Under extreme political pressure, Sally fights, and walks the talk for women who choose to birth at home.

Later in the night, the keynote speaker from the International Women's Development Agency spoke. In her speech she pointed out that although women have so much to celebrate, we still have a long way to go until equality for all is reached. I agree. She read out some statistics including: only 3% of the CEOs in the ASX companies are women.

This percentage represents an enormous gender inequality and reminds us that although women may vote and live independent lives, we should remember who really holds the power.

I say, you can shove your corporate power up your ass. This statistic is not a measure of women's deficiency, but of their virtue.

The planet is in serious trouble because of greedy CEOs, so why would we want to participate in the corporate model? When decisions are made because of shareholder profits instead of forests and air and flowers and fish, why would we want to play with you? We don't value you what you value. We value what you cut down, what you poison, what you maim.

Some might argue that the system needs more women in order to turn it around, but I don't think that's true. What we need is a brand new systems approach; not one that is measured by a disembodied GDP, but one that functions within in a steady state economy.

I hope you have a great International Women's Day on Monday!

May our hearts be strong, and our vaginas, happy.