WHAT ARE WE DOING ?
- holding 100 Events on the 100th International Women's Day | loop
- knitting 100 million stitches to represent 100 million women | sitandknitabit
WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
It is estimated that 100 million women are missing from the world today due to gender discrimination. Each stitch will represent a woman missing: discriminated to death or vanished from the global population.
Some of the reasons women are 'missing':
- gender provoked infanticide and abortion It is impossible to gather statistics on the number of girls who die annually from infanticide. Calculations are clouded by the nature of the crime, and by ambiguity and unrelability of much of the data. Nonetheless, a minimum estimate would place casualties in the hundreds of thousands. Sex-selective abortions likely account for an even higher number of 'missing' girls, and is a crime overwhelmingly commited by women.
- sex trafficking and slavery Again, the nature of the crime makes statistics and estimates difficult to rely on. A 2009 UNIFEM report estimates that the number of trafficked persons range from 500,000 to 2 million per year. In India, the federal police say that around 1.2 million children are involved in commercial sexual exploitation.
- prioritising resources and medical care to men in communities [eg vaccinations]
- lack of education education is a human right and an essential tool for achieving the goals of equality, development and peace. Non- discriminatory education benefits men and women, boys and girls. In 2008, UNESCO's statistics from 157 counries indicated that only one third of countries has reached gender equality in both primary and secondary education
- preventable complications in child birth which needlessly claim one woman a minute
We wish to take a fresh look at the challenges women face today in:
- governments Women make up less than 20% of UK MP's. The UK now stands at 52 in the international league of women's representation in parliaments - about level with the United Arab Emirates and below Afganistan, Rwanda, and Iraq. Lack of equal representation has direct consequences on policy making and the therefore the lives of everyone.
- workplaces 96% of executive directors of the UK's top 100 companies are men. 40 years after the Equal Pay Act, women working full-time in the UK are still paid an average of 16.4% less per hour than men. 30,000 women every year lose their jobs as a result of becoming pregnant
- homes 1 in 4 women in Britain will be a victim of domestic violence in their lifetime, many of these on a number of occasions
- in the media statistics everywhere show what we know in our guts. The roots of women being valued for their physical appearence, analysts say, are economic. By presenting an ideal impossible to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet and clothing industries are assured of growth and profits. Research also indicates that exposure to images of thin, young, air-brushed female bodies is linked to depression, loss of self esteem and unhealthy eating habits. It's also an all consuming obsession of our time which distracts from more pressing issues...
Please follow this link to hear more: TED
We wish to open conversation and debate about women in the 21st century.
It is important too to look at the faces of the ladies who have made positive change, whose shoulders we all stand on today, and to recognise their work and achievements in creating a fairer, more beautiful world for the women and men who live in it.
loop | sitandknitabit
100 Events for 100th International Women's Day
100 Million Stitches for 100 Million Women
loop | sitandknitabit