8th March of every year has been a day set aside to not just celebrate the achievement of women but to also encourage them to get actively involved in every aspect of society politically, economically, socially, technologically, in sports, at work, in creativity etc.
The International Women's Day is is meant to encourage women pursue and achieve their goals against all odds and this year's theme is Choose To Challenge.
According to IWD, a challenged world is a changed world. We either choose to challenge a biased world or sit back and fold our arms.
We can all choose to celebrate the achievement of women, help to create an all inclusive world or sit back and relegate women to the background.
It is also a call for women to enhance their lives and extend their influence wherever they are impacting lives thereby making meaningful contribution to society and the world at large.
Women from time immemorial all over the world have always encountered one form of challenge or the other. Be it maternal health, education, favorable work conditions, in sports or even in politics.
They have in so many ways been limited to take up certain positions in the home, work place, economy, polity or even in social life because of the strong patriarchal system.
One major challenge women have always faced is the issue of being represented in every facet of life especially in the polity but by God's grace, we see a number of women though small in number rising up to the challenge.
Women are beginning to occupy positions in the polity, economy, work places and in the technology world.
We have seen women like Ellen Johnson who emerged as the first female African president in Liberia and did greatly well. There is also Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic who was also the first female president in Croatia and other women all over the world who have been presidents of their countries.
Down here in Nigeria is one of our very own Ngozi Okonjo Iweala who emerged as the first female and first African to hold the office of the Director General of the World Trade Organization since March 1st 2021.
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| Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General, World Trade Organization ( WTO). |
Before holding the office of the Director General of the WTO, she was Nigeria's Minister of Finance for two tenures (2003-2015).
She was the first woman to serve as Nigeria's Minister of Finance and also the first woman to hold the office twice for two tenures.
These and a few other women all over the world such as Hilary Clinton are actively engaged in politics and are doing well.
In sports, we also see a rising number of women like Blessing Okagbare, Chioma Ajunwa, Savour Ofili, Billie Jean King, Alex Morgan, Serena Williams etc participating in almost all the sports even if there is still a great disparity between men and women.
In technology, there is an organization called Women In Technology (WIN) which is intended to close the gap and help women embrace technology.
We are in an era where everything is been digitized. The emergence of Corona Virus has even made the world more digitized than ever.
Women who are striving in technology include Kike Oniwinde, Chelsea Brown, VY Luu etc. Before all these women was the first the world's first computer programmer who was a woman named Ada Lovelace.
Most of these women are not known. Their stories are untold and their songs unsung yet history has it that the first programmers were not men but women but they are not known.
The contributions of women in the technology world are not told. They are left out in the history books but that is changing or recent as women are rising to the challenge though few but gradually.
Every organization or company has gone digital and so women ought to get involved in the technology world and we can only do this by encouraging women into the technology.
Let every girl child be encouraged to study computer sciences and other related courses. This will not just broaden their horizons but empower them in the future.
Every parent should learn to invest in the female children and not to see them as just a set of people made to reproduce and be domesticated.
The world of technology is often and majorly seen as a man's thing and dominated by the men and at such, more women need to rise up to the challenge.
History has shown that women in politics, technology, economy and every other aspect have always done better than imagined leaving an indelible mark for even their male counterparts to follow.
No woman should be limited on what she can do. Every woman should be encouraged to live up to their full potential.
And women should not sit back letting the potentials God has given to them go to waste. If we all as women rise up to the challenge helping each other explore and live our full potentials, the world would be a much more better place.
Any nation that excludes women from all of its affairs can hardly develop and the nations that have had women at the helm of affairs can tell of the impacts women have made in that nation.
If every woman should choose to face every challenge they get to face wherever they are at the moment then there is no hurdle they can't cross, no barrier they can't break, no obstacle they can't overcome.
Every woman must not be in politics, technology or any other area. We are all gifted to make a change in our own little sphere in life.
We can always start from where we are causing positive changes in our homes, environments, work places, schools etc and gradually the world at large.
When we all as women learn to face and overcome challenges, then there wont be limits to what we can do.
Quote for the day - "A challenged world is a changed world." - IWD
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