Marches and demonstrations in Asia are kicking off rallies around the world to mark International Women’s Day, Associated Press reports.
Hundreds of activists in pink and purple shirts protested in the Philippines against President Rodrigo Duterte, who they said is among the worst violators of women’s rights in Asia.
Protest leaders sang and danced in a boisterous rally in downtown Manila’s Plaza Miranda. They handed red and white roses to mothers, sisters and widows of several drug suspects slain under Duterte’s deadly crackdown on illegal drugs.
A rally for the rights of female workers was scheduled for later Thursday in central Seoul in South Korea, where a rapidly spreading #Metoo movement is galvanising support for women’s issues.
Other events are planned across Asia, the Mideast, Europe and the Americas.
Progress for some women can no longer come at the cost of continued exploitation and disempowerment for others, writes Molly Harriss Olson:
Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer recounted a conversation with her friend and The Help co-star Jessica Chastain about pay inequality, in which Spencer pointed out the colour pay gap. For every 77 cents a white woman makes a white man may earn a dollar, but an African American woman will earn 64 cents and a Hispanic woman 56. So for an upcoming movie starring both women, Chastain tied Spencer’s pay to hers, increasing Spencer’s pay fivefold.
It was a money-where-her-mouth-is-moment – a profoundly tangible act, where anger and frustration triumphed in action instead of fading away into our common humiliation and impotency …
Women who work as farmers or producers in developing countries will not benefit from black couture frocks at the Golden Globes or examinations of the pay gap in developed countries. They will not benefit from social media storms about the role of the feminist movement or definition of consent, no matter how seismic their importance. But we can still make a tangible difference; we can still have our money-where-our-mouths-are moments.