Why I Don’t Celebrate IWD Anymore
…and What I’d Like to Celebrate Instead!
For almost 20 years, I celebrated International Women’s Day bigtime. With a hard-working committee, I organized a big conference at my college which took us all year long to plan. It was always worth it!
Eventually the one-day conference expanded to a Festival of Women Writers that filled all of March, Women’s History Month in the US; and then spilled out into year-round events featuring and celebrating women in the expressive arts.
2016 was the year I let all of that busy organizing work go.
Why?
It wasn’t that I felt any less adamant about the importance of strengthening women’s creative voices and visions. If anything, the disastrous election of Donald Trump showed how imperative it continued to be to push back against toxic masculinity.
It wasn’t that I got lazy or tired. Ok yeah, I was a little tired.
But more importantly, round about 2016 something shifted that made me think it was more important to work towards strengthening connections than to organize events that highlighted differences.
Maybe it was the raucousness of both right wing bullying and left wing cancel culture. Watching the sides trade punches felt like being mesmerized by a smashing game of tennis while failing to notice that the stadium hosting the match is starting to burn.
Post 2016 I became all too aware that while we humans continue to swing at each other—even when the fight appears to be for a good cause, like leveling the gendered educational or professional playing field—our planet’s life support systems are flashing on high alert: Danger! Danger!
Post 2016 I realized that all the battles over women’s rights, human rights and social justice will be totally moot if we don’t have a functional planet to call home.
And we need more than just a functional planet—we need a vibrant, beautiful, thriving Earth community.
So that’s become my focus these days.
I still teach my college courses in women’s leadership and women’s activist literature, but now my reading list focuses on trailblazing folks (of any gender) who, in my latest book, I call “worldwrights”—those who use their writing, public speaking and other forms of communication to make the world better.
Collaborating across differences is probably the most important skill I try to impart in my leadership and communications courses. (If you’re interested, in this article I share some of the nuts and bolts of my approach to collaboration in online humanities courses.)
These days, instead of International Women’s Day, I’m imagining the entire Earth community celebrating “International Humans’ Day,” in recognition of the outstanding positive contribution we humans make to the well-being of all life on our planet.
At the moment the idea of the grand Council of All Beings getting together to celebrate humanity might seem like a joke, but I think it’s a reasonable aspiration to hold.
To make that dream a reality, what’s important is balance and cooperation.
As so many ancient wisdom traditions have affirmed, the bird of humanity cannot fly with just one wing.
We need the masculine quality of protective stewardship as much as we need the feminine quality of nurturing.
We need our bird to be fabulously plumed with feathers of every color and texture under the Sun, emblematic of our profound interdependence with All That Is and celebrating the synergies and exchanges that make life possible.
Women of the world, I see you, I applaud you, I salute you. And I invite you on this day to make common cause with everyone in your purview, to achieve a world where everyone can thrive to their fullest potential; where no one steps on another to get ahead; where collaboration is practiced not just within families or identity groups, but in the recognition of the sacredness of every single member of our Earth community.
In the immortal words of Rumi, as translated by Coleman Barks: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
Jupiter and Venus on a Full Moon eve. Photo by J. Browdy
Jennifer, this post reaches me at my core. I love the idea of International Human's Day, and I believe that if we need to find areas of connection and nurture, honor, and celebrate them. I hope my books serve the purpose of worldwrighting in some small way. Right now, my focus is mostly on the Jamestown Ukraine Relief Project, trying to bring humanitarian aid to people displaced and/or in need due to the invasion. This is something I wrote back in 2016. I will repost it on Facebook this week on my birthday. June 13, 2016
Dear sisters and brothers on the Planet Earth,
I love you. Every single one of you. I don't care what you believe. I don't care what group you belong to. I don't care if you agree with anything I think, I say, I believe. The one thing I know for sure about you, about each and every one of you, is that we are living on this earth together right now.
You may be just a few minutes old, or maybe over 100 years old, taking your very first breaths, or your very last ones. We all come from the same source and have whirled and twirled our way through the universe into bodies on this planet right now. We are undeniably connected, not just with each other, but with the past and the future and the source of all life.
We are all tied to the most beautiful, selfless acts in human history and we are all tied to the most, horrible, cruel acts in human history. We are all innocent and we are all guilty. We have all been harmed by our species' tendency to turn to violence as a solution. We have all been enriched by our species' tendency to seek peace. Each of us has the potential to love, to hate, to nurture life and to take life.
We are all lost. But we can be found.
We have ALL been harmed by thousands of years of history that told us we are separate from each other.
We can find each other with love, forgiveness, compassion, and respect for the amazing planet that sustains us all. It is OUR home. We live here together. No matter what we believe.
My question for you, my beloved brothers and sisters, is simple. What kind of life do you want for the children of the world...for your children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and for the generations that follow? Do you want their lives to be framed by war, vengeance, fear, ideological conflict, a sense of separateness and hate? I do not want this future for my children and grandchildren or anyone else's.
So, I have no choice, but to renounce the illusion that we are separate. Right now, the only way I know how to do that is to try to rise above my inclination to horror, to fear, to outrage, to judgment, to feelings of separateness. Instead, I will love without ceasing. I will pry my heart open to give and receive love. I don't know what else to do. I am connected to you, dear sister and brother. Please accept my love.
Your sister,
Jan
PS, Jenn, I am such an admirer of the work you do. The last few years, babysitting grandkids, trying to finish my book , a few health issues, and moving to RI have prevented me from getting out to western MA, but I hope to reconnect with you in person sometime this year. You are an inspirational force and I admire all your efforts.
i agree that the environment should be the top concern. But I still spent some time emailing about the current activity about the ERA. And emailing about the wonderful Cassie Chambers (D) getting elected to the Kentucky state senate. Is this an example of "effective altruism"? I guess not. For now, I don't care.