Today marks the centenary of International Women’s Day, a day when thousands of events are held
throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements.
In the last 100 years there have been many women who have fought for their beliefs, who have become ground breakers in so many different fields of life and who have struggled against adversity and opposition to reach their goals and whose stories even now inspire the women of today. They may be mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, granddaughters, lone parents, spinsters or wives, but they are all women. Today is a celebration of these people and an acknowledgement of all they do and continue to do.
So who would feature in your list of Top Ten Women of the century? It’s a difficult one to answer and I’m sure everyone can think of different people. For me, it would be those women who were told “It couldn’t be done” and then went out and did it anyway, people like Amelia Earhart the first woman to fly a plane solo across the Atlantic. How about women who overcame great adversity in their life but who managed to turn things around and make a success in spite of their disabilities – people like Helen Keller, American author, political activist and lecturer who became the first deaf blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. There’s also those who devote most of their lives to serving and helping others and who offer comfort and hope to those less fortunate, people like Mother Theresa, who was still working and caring for people when she was 100yrs old.
In the last century alone we have seen the suffragette movement of women fight for equal rights, we have seen women take the places of men in factories whilst the men went off to fight in World War II – nowadays the women themselves are going to fight. We have seen Women Politicians Prime Ministers, Women scientists and authors, Women doctors and lawyers – even Women Footballer managers of premier league clubs. There seems to be no end to what women have achieved in the last one hundred years and are still doing so now.
There are so many women around the world who daily provide comfort and care to those in need, who fight for the rights of other women, who strive to improve living conditions and who make the world a better place just by what they do. Many of them aren’t film stars or pop stars but do an ordinary job day in day out and don’t think that they make much of a difference – but they do!
So to all women out there – THANK YOU for your fine examples, for not giving up when the going got tough and for showing women everywhere what can be achieved if we try. May we as women of today, continue to be the good example, to help and strengthen others in their time of need and to carry on through our adversities to reach our goals.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
-- Marie Curie
Follow your instincts - you never know if your ideas will work out unless you try them.
-- Lulu Guinness, Good Housekeeping, June 2003
Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother. -- Susan B. Anthony, Women's Activist
In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman. – Margaret Thatcher former British Prime Minister.
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist. --Queen Victoria
Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. – Harriet Beecher Stowe, Author.
Happy Women's Day!!
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