Friday, March 8, 2019

WIRTW #545 (the “International Women's Day” edition) #IWD2019


Happy International Women's Day!

I didn't always consider myself a feminist. But I'm proud to call myself one ever since May 27, 2006—the day my daughter was born.

It wasn't that I was hostile to the issue; I just never engaged in any active thought about it. Now that I have a female life for which I am responsible, I fully embrace the term.

I worry about the world in which she lives, and how that world may treat her because of her sex.

❔ Will she have the same opportunities?

❔ Will she earn the same money for the same work?

❔ Will she face harassment or mistreatment because of her gender?

❔ Will she have to worry about walking to her car at night, or about the intentions of person she just met, or about being prayed upon or assaulted?

(For the record, the answers are I hope so but maybe not, I hope so but maybe not, yes, and yes.)

As a result, I take seriously my job as a dad to make the world more equal for her.

❤ I encourage her that she can be whatever she wants to be.

❤ I remind her that she can achieve whatever she wants to achieve as long as she puts in the effort.

❤ I embolden her to stand up for herself, to be her own advocate, and not to let anyone treat her differently because she's a girl.

❤ And I teach her and her younger brother about treating all people as equals, regardless of anything that makes them different (including gender).

As trite as it sounds, the children really are our future, and we absolutely need to teach them well and let them lead the way. I look forward to the day when we don't need an International Women's Day (or any International Fill-in-the-Blank Day), when we are all just people, defined only be the fact that we happen to share the same rock hurdling through space at the same moment in history.

Until then, however, let's all strive to be better, to treat others as they want to be treated, and celebrate not only that which makes us that same but also that which makes us different. Because it's in the differences that we truly find that which makes us human.

Here's what I read this week:

Discrimination
HR & Employee Relations

Technology

Wage & Hour

Labor

OSHA & Safety