The European Parliament will use the upcoming International Women’s Day (8 March) to highlight the issue of women’s economic empowerment. According to the EU, while many things are improving and going in the right direction, women still earn less for doing the same work and struggle to access to highest ranks and top positions in their organizations. Moreover, some women are still subject to violence and abuse and lack any form of education.
In order to raise awareness of these issues, the Parliament’s Committee on gender equality will be putting the spotlight on the economic empowerment of women with emphasis on the following areas: women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, freedom from violence, gender-sensitive policymaking, work-life balance and the gender pay gap, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
On 7 March, the European Parliament’s Visitors’ Center opens a temporary exhibition entitled Eleven Women Facing War, which present photographs and films by an award-winning photographer and filmmaker Nick Danziger. The exhibition tells the stories of women caught in armed conflicts in places such as Afghanistan, Colombia and Sierra Leone. The Parliament will also organize a seminar for journalists and the speakers will include the chair and the members of the gender equality committee.
In the meantime, in the United States, the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington are organizing “A Day Without a Woman”, urging women to act together for equity, justice and the human rights of women and all gender-oppressed people. In a one-day demonstration, women are encouraged to take part in one or all of the following symbolic acts: taking the day off from paid and unpaid labor, avoid shopping for one day and wear the red color in solidarity.
