Watch Out For Women!

Friday was the Women's World Day of Prayer, Sunday [in the UK at least] was Mother's Day [Mothering Sunday] and today is International Women's Day.

It has been around for over a hundred years, and is gradually getting more well known.
You can read about the UN theme here
Oxfam has some helpful information too

• When women can exercise their rights and gain the knowledge, skills, and information they need, they can become powerful agents of change. Consider these facts:
• Worldwide in 2008, nearly 800 million people over the age of 15 could neither read nor write—and two-thirds of them were women.
• In most countries, women are paid on average 60 to 75 percent of what men make.
• As of July 2013, women worldwide made up fewer than 21 percent of national legislators.
• Of all credit offered in developing countries, only 10 percent of it is available to women, making it more difficult for them to start businesses or take out loans.
• An estimated 150 million people in 34 developing countries could escape hunger if women had the same access as men to the assets they need for farming.

    This year, the slogan is "Planet 50-50 by 2030 ; Step it up for gender equality".

    Here are a few quotes about women, just to make you think

• "Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants." – Coco Chanel
• "Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one." – Eleanor Roosevelt
• "By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacation-less class." – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• "Honour your daughters. They are honourable." – Malala Yousafzai
• "The fastest way to change society is to mobilise the women of the world." – Charles Malik [Lebanese philosopher]
• "A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult." – Melinda Gates
• "A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty." – Rudyard Kipling

     We women in the west love to complain about gender inequalities - but at least we have the freedom to speak out, and the opportunity to work for change.