Beginning Over, 11. It Matters Not Where We Are From

Today is Women's Day. Today, while in the West we are still struggling for equal pay for equal work, and to change social norms about women, in the East, women are struggling for survival. Ukrainian women, their menfolk forced to stay behind to fight, are evading bombs and missiles to lead their families to safe havens in the West. Most of them reach their destination. But some are being tricked into human trafficking, it seems, by strangers coming up to them, promising them and their children a place to sleep. 

Of course, since it is European women this is happening to, it's suddenly something to get angry about. But it's been happening to countless women in countless third world countries, as they marched through them, trying to reach the relative safety of Europe, escaping from their troubled or war-torn homes. Yet, because those women's skins are not pink and cream, nor do they have blue eyes, they are ignored. 

Much has been made these days of a Ukrainian woman, who, from her balcony, heaved a jar of pickles at a Russian drone and hit it, knocking it to the ground, where neighbors made short shrift of it. Good for her. Yet, how many stories of how many dauntless women in Syria, or Eritrea, or Afghanistan, or any other non-European country do we know? 

Women, we are the same everywhere. Everywhere we want to care for our loved ones, and to be considered equal to our menfolk. Everywhere we want to live in peace. We are not less, neither if we are European, nor if we are from any other part of the world, We are also not less for being women. Make our one voice heard everywhere.

Life continues.