there is heart in hope

I have written about this issue so many times on my blog...but every single time I start...I am at a loss for words. How do I write about this? How can I say what I want to say without using so many numbers and statistics. Over 50 million (yes, million!!), 70 million or 100 million girls and women missing?? No-one really knows the numbers. I mean, there is no real way to calculate female fetuses and girls that are killed in the womb through sex elective abortions. There is no way to tell how many baby girls are suffocated to death...it's all very hidden so it's impossible to get a real number. But when you see a very skewed gender ratio in India and China...you start to get a clearer picture of the magnitude of the gendercide that is happening right now halfway across the world. But really, it's only a heartbeat away...because these girls are our daughters...these women are our sisters. This is what's true.                                                   

                                            (a sketch I did called... I am your Sister)
When we were in Vancouver a few months ago, I went to see a special screening of the movie It's a Girl. Afterwards..I plunged into a dark place. I cried and cursed and ranted on and on. Then I cried + cursed some more. It broke my heart. And it pissed me off. And in between all of that...I  was ever so thankful that Tara was not born in a culture and society were this was permitted. But then something happened...a shift in me, in my heart + mind. There are millions of Taras that are not permitted to be born there...that are never allowed this most basic right...the right to live!!! And I realised that it is not enough, not enough, not enough...for me to be grateful that my daughter was not born there.

Rita Banerji, who is doing the heart wrenching work of addressing this atrocity, has been trying to get heard at the United Nations. And...it's finally happened!!! Currently the U.N. does not recognise gender based genocide as a human right violation. Rita is trying to change that. She is going to present this genocide at a U.N. conference in Vienna and she needs your help!! Can you please sign this petition right here  to say that women's rights are human rights!! Because there is strength in our voices, there is courage in our actions and there is heart in hope.

how far we've come...how far we have to go

                                                               (3 Women, 2006-SOLD)
" I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't."     -Audre Lorde (* I was introduced to the life + writings of Audre Lorde in my first year of University a looooong time ago and instantly fell in love with this brilliant + courageous warrior with words.)

Today is International Women's Day so...I got to thinking about what that means.  Of course it's to celebrate all  we have accomplished and how far we have come . But...what does it mean to a woman who is raped in the Congo (aprox. 48 women every hour) , or a woman in India who just found out that her baby girl has been murdered by her husband simply because she's a girl or...a young girl in Afghanistan who burns herself to death because she feels that is her only option???  The list goes on. And on. and on.
I know full well that if I lived in many parts of the world I would not have the life I do...so I certainly don't take any of the freedoms I have for granted. I can say whatever I want, paint what I like and hey!!! I won't get beaten, thrown in jail or murdered because of it!! But...lets not kid ourselves either...gender based violence + inequities are an issue all over the world even right here in North America. So...while we embrace and celebrate all that is wonderful about being women...lets also work toward making things better in our small part of the world as well.