It’s International Women’s Day, again

Dear reader,

Today is International Women’s Day. Again.

The fact that we still need an International Women’s Day, more than a century after the first one was held*, is nothing to be proud of.

Yes, tremendous progress has been made, including in Lebanon.

In 2023, women represented 31.8 percent of the workforce, up from 23.5 percent 20 years ago.

But women still don’t have the right to pass citizenship to their children, still depend on religious personal status laws and are often left behind by a society that considers them, at best, as caretakers only, and, at worst, second-class citizens.

Worse, worldwide biases against gender equality are still strong and increasing. A UN study shows that 91 percent of men and 86 percent of women show at least one clear bias against gender equality in areas such as politics, economic, education, intimate partner violence and women’s reproductive rights.

Lebanon and the world are full of women who debunk that narrative, and whose work deserves to be celebrated. That’s why, for the second year in a row, we partnered with Spark News, a collaborative alliance of 16 international news outlets, to highlight the challenges and solutions to reach gender equality.

Good ideas to bridge the gender gap abound around the world, the onus is now on us to make them happen.

L’Orient Today

* The earliest reported Women's Day event, called « National Woman's Day, » was held on Feb. 28, 1909, in New York City.

The United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day in 1975. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as an official UN holiday for women's rights and world peace.

In case you missed them, here are our must-read stories of the week: