International Women's Day and Mother's Day

This week is full of celebration of women, which is a sorely needed uplift. Even though the days are growing lighter, and we can hopefully see a two-household gathering on the horizon, it is still far off, and still only a hope rather than a certainty.

It was interesting to reflect that in Israel International Women’s day is called יום האישה הבינלאומי which translates as the “international day of the woman”, rather than women. Where Mother’s Day is about celebrating the individual women in our lives, Women’s Day is about the collective, about solidarity and the change that can come when we realise the systemic issues at work.

It is hard to feel the sisterhood or friendships of any kind at the moment, but I was delighted to get this feeling back at a gathering I had been invited to this past weekend. Women100 is "a community for women in East London from all faiths/no faiths, all ages and background to come together to develop themselves as leaders and increase women’s participation in the community and political decision-making process...to create[s] a platform for women to speak about the issues they are facing, work on common issues and towards gender equality”.

I was asked to speak about the importance of women leadership for me as a female faith leader. I shared my story of having no female faith leaders as role models when I grew up (apart from a very plucky feminist RE teacher called Linda), and how sometimes we have to look outside of the normal boundaries to be inspired. And, as so often happens, I learnt much if not more from this group of incredible women, than they learned from my story. The sheer warmth, love, and care they showed in celebrating each other and all they had achieved together as a diverse coalition of local neighbourhood groups had a profound impact on me. Though there’s still quite a while till we can all meet up, share a cuppa and talk, this group and their powerful stories have challenged me to think about the changes we need in our borough, especially for women. .

And if you want to learn more about the amazing and inspiring women in Haringey, have a look at this new  Haringey Women’s History Map, and see if someone interesting lived near you.