Cancel Women's History Month
We have work to do. Iranian women need us now.
This morning I must have read more than a hundred posts celebrating International Women’s Day. And Women’s History Month.
Amazing women. Inspiring women. Powerful women.
One post showed women from the same industry, one for every day of Women’s History Month. Every one of them American.
International Women’s Day. Thirty one Americans.
And it made me pause.
Not because I object to celebrating women. We should. Women have pushed through walls for generations to get where we are. Recognition matters. I celebrate women every single day.
I saw another woman earlier today say that on International Women’s Day she immediately thought of the suffragettes. I get it. It is a natural place for many people to go. Their courage changed history. The ridicule they endured and the determination they showed reshaped our lives. But international?
So reading through so many of the posts today made me think about something else.
The word international. And, the lack of international women posting. Maybe it’s my algorithm, but after some homework, I do not believe it is.
Most of the celebrations I am seeing are Americans celebrating American women or reflecting on American history. Again, that history matters enormously. But the story of women gaining rights did not end there, and in many places it is still unfolding right now.
Across parts of the world today, women are still fighting for the very rights those early suffragettes fought for. In some countries women cannot vote freely. In others they are pushed out of public life entirely.
Iran comes to mind right now. Women there have been risking imprisonment, violence, and their lives simply for demanding autonomy and freedom.
A few days ago, we bombed their country. We leveled a school with many girls left dead. Perhaps hundreds.
They are not posting lists. I don’t think we should either. There is immediate, emergency work to be done that overshadows this month’s celebration.
And it made me think about the extraordinary energy we women put into Women’s History Month. Anyone who has ever organized a panel, an event, or even a thoughtful post knows the work that goes into it. The planning, the outreach, the coordination.
We women are very good at getting things done.
So I find myself imagining something else.
What if all of the panels this month were redirected to women in Iran and what they are facing.
What if the awards given this month were used to bring an Iranian woman to speak, to be heard, to be protected.
What if the money spent on events and celebrations were refocused toward organizations supporting the women leading that fight.
What if this month became less about recognition and more about action.
So this year I am trying something different.
I am setting aside Women’s History Month for myself. Every ounce of energy I might have spent celebrating it, posting about it, or organizing around it, I am going to focus instead on the women in Iran and what they may need from those of us watching from afar.
They are fighting the regime inside Iran and the American invasion at the same time. We owe them. We owe it to ourselves.
International Women’s Day can certainly be a moment of celebration.
But it can also be a moment of solidarity.
The suffragettes did not fight so we would simply celebrate them.
They fought so the work would continue.
And right now, in places like Iran, that work is still very much underway.
For anyone interested in learning more or supporting women’s rights efforts there, here are several organizations doing important work.
Center for Human Rights in Iran
Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
Women Living Under Muslim Laws
If International Women’s Day is truly international, perhaps one of the best ways to honor the women who came before us is by paying attention to the women who still need the women of the world to notice them now, and to take action now.