NAAWAN, Misamis Oriental (MindaNews/8 March) – March 8 is declared by the United Nations as the International Women’s Day. The historic basis was March 8, 1917, the day when women in Russia were considered equal to men in enjoying the right of suffrage.
Isn’t it ironic that the right of suffrage was first enjoyed by women in Revolutionary Russia not in France, the land of liberty, fraternity and equality, or in the democratic USA, the land of the brave and the free?
Time was when being a woman was considered an abominable fate. The Jews expressed this view in their prayer that says: Thank you, Lord, that I was not born a gentile or born a woman.”
Female infanticide was practiced for centuries in ancient China. A girl, especially the first born was bad luck and would become a family burden and thus was disposed of immediately upon birth.
In those days women were considered a property like a beast of burden that were traded of or sold by their owner.
The worst fate that befell women was the Hindu practice of Sati or widow burning that persisted until the 19th century where wives were cremated alive with their dead husbands. Equally cruel and vicious was the witch hunting in the Dark Ages were women accused of sorcery and black magic were burned at stake alive.
In present day India women are still treated so low that they are gang-raped inside a bus or a train in the presence of passengers who often turn a blind eye to what is happening before them.