Corpus Jehovah Fellowship -In Solidarity with International Women’s Day & Week – from 8th March, Rev Dr Koku Foli Adomdza HRH, Chancellor, President & Supreme Jehovah GOD's Servant

Post date: Mar 13, 2015 7:4:44 PM

International Women's Day/Week Theme 2015 is Empowering Women - Empowering Humanity:Picture It!

Corpus Jehovah |Supreme Jehovah GOD Ministries & Missionaries believes that Gender Equality is a a Fundamental Human Right and a Public Good that would benefit Every Human Being and a Healthy Legacy to bequeath Future Generations. We acknowledge that every Human Being since Adam & Eve is a product of a Woman and therefore the attainment of Gender Equality enhances the Role of Men in society. Corpus Jehovah Fellowship is clear that the Oppression of Women and Discriminations against Womenfolk denies the World the Total Human Talent Potential of Women and it unwise and primitive. We fervently believe that Gender Equality is a Civilising Act which is integral in Creating a More Perfect World. For these ideals, we express Solidarity with All Women of the World, Gender Equality Programs and wish All Women Success in their Endeavours.

“Discrimination against Women benefits no one. It does not only disrespects Women but it simultaneously demeans the perpetrators of women stereotyping and deprives the World of the full contribution of women to society. We all know the perils of a Male-dominated World. For a more civilised World, we need Fair Treatment of women through the Full Observance of the Rights of All Women – not a select few.” Koku Foli Adomdza HRH, Chancellor, President & Principal Consultant of Corpus Jehovah Fellowship, Foundation, Institute & Fraternity

"To be truly transformative, the post-2015 development agenda must prioritize gender equality and women’s empowerment. The world will never realize 100 per cent of its goals if 50 per cent of its people cannot realize their full potential. " Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

International Women’s Day & Week is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of their countries and communities.

The theme for 2015, “Empowering Women - Empowering Humanity: Picture It!" envisions a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as PARTICIPATING in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.

In 2015, International Women’s Day will highlight the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a historic roadmap signed by 189 governments 20 years ago that sets the agenda for realizing women’s rights. While there have been many achievements since then, many serious gaps remain. This is the time to uphold women’s achievements, recognize challenges, and focus greater attention on women’s rights and gender equality to mobilize all people to do their part.

International Women's Day was marked on Sunday with tributes aimed at empowering women, reflecting on how far the world has come in the quest for gender equality — and how far it still has to go.

In New York City, where International Women's Day began in 1909, about 1,000 people gathered at the United Nations for a march to Times Square.

"Today, you are marching in the footsteps of generations of feminists," New York City's first LADY, Chirlane McCray, told the crowd. "This march started more than a century ago, but we still have a long way to go before we get to equality."

That sentiment was echoed online, where thousands of women and men were urged to replace their social media AVATARS with a female silhouette and use the hashtag #NotThere — a symbolic act to show that while much progress has been made in the fight for women's rights, "we're NOT THERE" — at least, not yet.

The initiative, a collaboration between the Clinton Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was championed by celebrities with big online followings, including Cameron Diaz and Kate Upton.

#NotThere was not the only digital tribute to women on Sunday.

Google celebrated International Women’s Day with a doodle featuring women in various high-profile careers, including astronauts, engineers, scientists and judges. The search engine linked to another campaign — #DearMe — asking women to create a GIF that answered the question: "What advice would you give your younger self?"

Meanwhile, Beyoncé and LADY Gaga were among 36 prominent women who signed a petition calling on the G7 and the African Union to tackle female poverty, Agence France-Press reports.

Meryl Streep, Charlize Theron and Rosamund Pike also signed the letter ADDRESSED to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and African Union Commission Chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who are each hosting a women's summit later this year.

"If your summits reach the right agreements, great FINANCING and momentum around girls' and women's empowerment can be placed at the heart of the new global goals," the letter reads. "Poverty is sexist, and we won't end it unless we face up to the fact that girls and women get a raw deal, and until leaders and citizens around the world work together for real change.

"If we get this right, we could help lift every girl and woman out of poverty by 2030 — and by doing so we will lift everyone. Get this wrong and extreme poverty, inequality and instability might SPREAD in the most vulnerable regions, impacting all our futures."

Contemporary Example of Bigotry Against Women: The Mothers of All Humans -

On 9th March 2015, a community-style blog encouraging female contributors to write about their experiences was knocked offline during a day for the global celebration of women.

Femsplain was unavailable for several hours during International Women's Day on Sunday, 8 March, after a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. It is unclear who was behind the attack. The site was launched in October 2014 and has been crowdfunding on the net. It reached its $25,000 FUNDRAISING target last week.

"We're more than a website or events - we're a movement. We are providing a safe space to connect, learn and grow with other female-identified people," reads the introduction to the site.

"Our goal is to highlight all the amazing diversity of women on the internet who might not have another outlet to SHARE their experiences."

Women have increasingly reported being threatened and harassed online, especially on social media platforms, in recent times. In 2013, Caroline Criado-Perez received death threats after successfully campaigning for writer Jane Austen to appear on £20 notes.

Still Under Attack in the 21st Century, Hundred Years of Struggle!!!

DDoS is a technique in which many COMPUTERS are used to flood an online service with requests in an attempt to overload its systems. When the site went down, founder Amber Gordon tweeted that Femsplain frequently experienced attempted attacks.

"We constantly have people attacking us and attempting to bring our website down. It's unfortunate but the reality of our mission," she wrote.

"Ultimately, whoever is behind the attack hasn't achieved anything or even articulated a criticism of feminism or Femsplain specifically," said Jess McCabe, former editor of feminist website the F Word.

"Far from silencing anyone, it will only help amplify Femsplain's voices."

In its various incarnations, ranging from a communist holiday to a U.N.-sponsored event, International Women's Day has been celebrated for over 100 years.

Inspired by an American commemoration of working women, the German socialist Klara Zetkin organized International Women's Day (IWD) in 1911. On March 19, socialists from Germany, Austria, Denmark and other European countries held strikes and marches. Russian revolutionary and feminist Aleksandra Kollontai, who helped organize the event, described it as "one seething trembling sea of women."

Womens Rights and Peace

As the nascent annual event developed, it took on the cause of peace as well as women's rights. In 1915, Zetkin organized a demonstration in Bern, Switzerland, to urge the end of World War I. Women on both sides of the war turned out.

Russian Women and the February Revolution

Both Zetkin and Kollontai took part in the most famous International Women's Day—the March 8, 1917, strike "for bread and peace" led by RUSSIAN WOMEN in St. Petersburg. The IWD strike merged with riots that had spread through the city between March 8–12. The February Revolution, as it became known, forced the Czar Nicholas II to abdicate. (Russia switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1918, which moved the dates of the February revolution [Feb. 24–28, old style] to March.)

The "Heroic Woman Worker," Soviet Charm

Kollontai, a minister in the first Soviet government, persuaded Lenin to make March 8 an official communist holiday. During the Soviet period, the holiday celebrated "the heroic woman worker." Today it is still a Russian holiday—celebrated in the fashion of Mother's Day with flowers or breakfast in bed—in which men show appreciation for the women in their lives.

International Women's Day, the U.S., and the U.N.

IWD was commemorated in the United States during the 1910s and 1920s, but then dwindled. It was revived during the women's movement in the 1960s, but without its socialist associations. In 1975, the U.N. began sponsoring International Women's Day.

International Women's Day is now an official holiday in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikstan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. In addition, events are held all over the world.

Some of the issues the U.N. and International Women's Day have focused on include the following:

About 25,000 brides are burned to death each year in India because of insufficient dowries. The groom's family will set the bride on fire, presenting it as an accident or suicide. The groom is then free to remarry.

In a number of countries, women who have been raped are sometimes killed by their own families to preserve the family's honour. Honour killings have been reported in Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other Persian Gulf countries.

According to UNICEF, 100 million to 140 million girls and women have undergone some form of female genital mutilation. Today, this practice is carried out in 28 African countries, despite the fact that it is outlawed in a number of these nations.

Rape as a weapon of war has been used in Chiapas, Mexico, Rwanda, Kuwait, Haiti, Colombia, and elsewhere.

Hunger and poverty among rural women and children.

International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908

Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909

In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women CONTINUED to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910

n 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

1911

Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.

1913-1914

On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, RUSSIAN WOMEN observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. In 1913 following discussions, International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since. In 1914 further women across Europe held rallies to campaign against the war and to express women's solidarity.

1917

On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for "bread and peace" in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional GOVERNMENT GRANTED women the right to vote. The date the women's strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.

1918 - 1999

Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women's Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike. For decades, IWD has grown from strength to strength annually. For many years the United Nations has held an annual IWD conference to coordinate international efforts for women's rights and PARTICIPATION in social, political and economic processes. 1975 was designated as 'International Women's Year' by the United Nations. Women's organisations and governments around the world have also observed IWD annually on 8 March by holding large-scale events that honour women's advancement and while diligently reminding of the CONTINUED vigilance and action required to ensure that women's equality is gained and maintained in all aspects of life.

2000 and beyond

IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and attitudinal shift in both women's and society's thoughts about women's equality and emancipation. Many from a younger generation feel that 'all the battles have been won for women' while many feminists from the 1970's know only too well the longevity and ingrained complexity of patriarchy. With more women in the boardroom, greater equality in legislative rights, and an increased critical mass of women's visibility as impressive role models in every aspect of life, one could think that women have gained true equality. The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.

However, great improvements have been made. We do have female astronauts and prime ministers, school girls are welcomed into university, women can work and have a family, women have real choices. And so the tone and nature of IWD has, for the past few years, moved from being a reminder about the negatives to a celebration of the positives.

Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to LOCAL WOMEN'S craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.

Many global corporations have also started to more actively support IWD by running their own internal events and through supporting external ones. For example, on 8 March search engine and media giant Google some years even changes its logo on its global search pages. Year on year IWD is certainly increasing in status. The United States even designates the whole month of March as 'Women's History Month'.

A Journey Back in Time:

What is “Women’s Day”? Is it really necessary? Is it not a concession to the women of the bourgeois class, to the feminists and suffragettes? Is it not harmful to the unity of the workers’ movement?

Such questions can still be heard in Russia, though they are no longer heard abroad. Life itself has already supplied a clear and eloquent answer.

“Women’s Day” is a link in the long, solid chain of the women’s proletarian movement. The organized army of working women grows with every year. Twenty years ago the trade unions contained only small groups of working women scattered here and there among the ranks of the workers’ party… Now English trade unions have over 292,000 women members; in Germany around 200,000 are in the trade union movement, and 150,000 in the workers’ party; and in Austria there are 47,000 in the trade unions and almost 20,000 in the party.

Everywhere — in Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland — the women of the working class are organizing themselves. The women’s socialist army has almost a million members. A powerful force! A force that the powers of this world must reckon with when it is a question of the cost of living, maternity insurance, child labour, and legislation to protect female labour.

There was a time when working men thought that they alone must bear on their shoulders the brunt of the struggle against capital, that they alone must deal with the “old world” without the help of their womenfolk. However, as working-class women entered the ranks of those who sell their labour, forced onto the labour market by need, by the fact that husband or father is unemployed, working men became aware that to leave women behind in the ranks of the “non-class-conscious” was to damage their cause and hold it back.

The Greater the Quantity and Quality of Conscious Fighters, the greater the chances of success! What Level of Consciousness is possessed by a woman who sits by the stove, who has no rights in society, the state or the family? She has no “ideas” of her own! Everything is done as ordered by the father or husband…

The backwardness and lack of rights suffered by women, their subjection and indifference, are of no benefit to the working class, and indeed are directly harmful to it. But how is the woman worker to be drawn into the movement, how is she to be awoken?

Social-Democracy abroad did not find the correct solution immediately. Workers’ organizations were open to women workers, but only a few entered. Why? Because the working class at first did not realize that the woman worker is the most legally and socially deprived member of that class, that she has been browbeaten, intimidated, persecuted down the centuries, and that in order to stimulate her mind and heart, a special approach is needed, words understandable to her as a woman.

The workers did not immediately appreciate that in this world of lack of rights and exploitation, the woman is oppressed not only as a seller of her labour, but also as a mother, as a woman… However, when the workers’ socialist party understood this, it boldly took up the defence of women on both counts as a hired worker and as a woman, a mother.

Socialists in every country began to demand special protection for female labour, INSURANCE for mother and child, political rights for women, and the defence of women’s interests.

The more clearly the workers’ party perceived this second objective vis-à-vis women workers, the more willingly women joined the party, the more they appreciated that the party is their true champion, that the working class is struggling also for their urgent and exclusively female needs. Working women themselves, organized and conscious, have done a great deal to elucidate this objective. Now the main burden of the work to attract more working women into the socialist movement lies with the women.

The parties in every country have their own special women’s committees, secretariats, and bureaus. These women’s committees conduct work among the still largely non-politically conscious female population, arouse the consciousness of working women, and organize them. They also examine those questions and demands that affect women most closely: protection and provision for expectant and nursing mothers, the legislative regulation of female labour, the campaign against prostitution and infant mortality, the demand for political rights for women, the improvement of housing, the campaign against the rising cost of living, etc.

Thus, as members of the party, women workers are fighting for the common class cause, while at the same time outlining and putting forward those needs and demands that most nearly affect themselves as women, housewives, and mothers. The party supports these demands and fights for them… The requirements of working women are part and parcel of the common workers’ cause!

On “Women’s Day” the organized demonstrate against their lack of rights.

But, some will say, why this singling out of women workers? Why special “Women’s Days,” special leaflets for working women, meetings and conferences of working-class women? Is this not, in the final analysis, a concession to the feminists and bourgeois suffragettes?

Only those who do not understand the radical difference between the Movement of Socialist Women and Bourgeois Suffragettes can think this way.

What is the aim of the Feminists? Their aim is to achieve the same advantages, the same power, the same rights within capitalist society as those possessed now by their husbands, fathers, and brothers.

What is the aim of the Women Workers? Their aim is to abolish all privileges deriving from birth or wealth. For the woman worker it is a matter of indifference who is the “master,” a man or a woman. Together with the whole of her class, she can ease her position as a worker.

Feminists demand equal rights always and everywhere.

Women Workers reply: we demand rights for every citizen, man and woman, but we are not prepared to forget that we are not only workers and citizens, but also mothers! And as mothers, as women who give birth to the future, we demand special concern for ourselves and our children, special protection from the state and society.

Political Rights –

The feminists are striving to acquire political rights. However, here too our paths separate. For bourgeois women, political rights are simply a means allowing them to make their way more conveniently and more SECURELY in a world founded on the exploitation of the working people.

For Women Workers, political rights are a step along the rocky and difficult path that leads to the desired Kingdom of Labour.

The paths pursued by Women Workers and Bourgeois Suffragettes have long since separated. There is too great a difference between the objectives that life has put before them. There is too great a contradiction between the interests of the woman worker and the LADY Proprietress, between the Servant and her Mistress… There are not and cannot be any points of contact, conciliation or convergence between them. Therefore Working Men should not fear Separate Women’s Days, nor special Conferences of Women Workers, nor their Special Press.

Every special, distinct form of work among the women of the working class is simply a means of arousing the consciousness of the woman worker and drawing her into the ranks of those fighting for a better future… Women’s Days and the SLOW, meticulous work undertaken to arouse the self-consciousness of the woman worker are serving the cause not of the division but of the Unification of the Working Class Citizens – the Majority in any given Democracy, the real locus of Power.

Let a joyous sense of serving the common class cause and of fighting simultaneously for their own female emancipation inspire women workers to join in the celebration of Women’s Day & Week.