International Women's Day 2024

Far, but not far enough. Yet.

Lena Horne Theater, venue of "Six."

On this day and celebration of women and spotlight on our progress, but also conversely on our traditional place and plight in the world, a throwback to images taken a few weeks ago, on the evening Sis and I saw "Six" - about the six wives of Henry VIII - during Broadway Week. Creative telling of the events of the reign from the queens' perspective, which, of course, is not how we learned it in school... herstory, rather than history. These six women who were political pawns, who were both passive and active participants in the most powerful courts of their time, whose value and power was both elevated and reduced by their ability to bear children who could and would be heirs to the throne held by a man.

Lena Horne Theater, venue of "Six."

And today, centuries later, we continue to wrestle with essentially that. Power struggles and wars instigated by men who use sex as a tool and weapon, with women as the involuntary subjugants, the children they bear and nurture as the collateral unto whom to perpetrate damage, still mere pawns too often.

Even as we begin to gain agency, so frequently that causes fear and insecurity among men, and a backlash is unleashed - the eggs and embryos that we carry overvalued when expedient, while our bodily autonomy and rights are discounted when convenient for others.

And as if collateralization and commodification of our and our children's personhoods weren't enough, heavily male-dominated governments politicize the availability of sustenance to boot - food and water as means to maintain control and dependence. Today, air-dropped pallets of food aid fell too fast under faulty parachutes and killed hungry people.

The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine at Times Square.

An oft-used proverb is "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine at Times Square.

I suspect that if women were taught to fish, they would feed themselves and their own children, share with other women and their children, and likely with many men, too, for all their lives.

The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine at Times Square.