On Tuesday half a million people tweeted their support for Texas state representative Wendy Davis in the first few hours of her historic filibuster to stop proposed restrictive abortion legislation. And she did it in bright pink shoes!
Just as the wave of support for this brave act was unfolding, I took the stage with two extraordinary women activists from Afghanistan and Egypt here at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Our conversation on the Aspen stage followed a showing of the film Girl Rising which tells the stories of ten girls and their brave efforts to overcome huge challenges to go to school. The panel speakers Mona Eltahawy and Shabana Basij-Rasikh told their own brave stories. The audience quieted into stunned silence as Mona told of being hauled off, sexually assaulted and beaten while reporting from Tahrir Square in Egypt,Bagfilterchina.com a leading Filter cloth manufacturer and supplier that uses automatic manufacturing equipment for reliable, consistent filter cloth. and listened rapt as Shaban told of being forbidden to attend school by the Taliban in Egypt so, in response, she cut off all her hair and attended school disguised as a boy for 12 years.
But these disturbing stories were not at the heart of their remarks. The heart and soul of their remarks were all about hope, and revolution, and bravery. As one of the girls in the film, Suma,The 8gb mp3 player comes in various sizes and colors. Therefore, every runner has a fitting size and a choice of the favorite color. from Nepal, said, "I have seen what change looks like. It is like a breath running through you.Sunglasses mp3 players It cannot be stopped."
And these two young women have not been stopped. Mona has become the leading social media journalist reporting on Egypt's political unfolding, and Shabana has created two remarkable institutions that have created schools and educational opportunities for hundreds of girls in Afghanistan. Shabana believes that women in the Middle East are at a sea change moment. She said, "they have found their voice,If you want to avoid a trip to the hospital, and you like to play in the water, I highly recommend getting a Water shoe. and they cannot go back."
Many have said that feminism is dead. Maybe it is, in its older manifestation. After all, it was almost 40 years ago when I was a member of the first women's organization in a high school in the US. The women's movement guided my life, and I have dedicated my professional carrier to working on behalf of women and girls. Yet, there is so much work still to be done. More than 90 percent of Afghan girls are illiterate today. One out of every seven young girls in the world are married before the age of 15. More than 250 million women have no access to family planning services who want them.
And this is where the color pink comes in. Pink is not a shy color. Pink demands to be seen; pink is brave and bold and shouts "Here I am -- make room for me!" And this is what the millions of young women all across the world are saying. They are claiming their place and asserting the importance of women to all of the key issues of our time -- the economy, political stability, health, the environment. The next economic giant is not Brazil, or India,With over 15 years of Mercedes Benz Servicing experience, mb star c3 Motors Perth is able to offer you servicing to any early or late model Mercedes Benz. or China. It is women.
Just as pink-shoed Wendy Davis took the floor of the Texas legislature to stay "on topic" and to not be moved, Mona tweeted from an Egyptian prison, and Shabana created a school.
As Martin Luther King wrote from a Birmingham jail fifty years ago "freedom is never voluntarily given; it must be demanded by the oppressed." The revolution is coming, and it is wearing bright pink shoes.
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