This International Women’s Day pounds like a powerful gavel on a marble slate

Shifting perspectives: What we celebrate matters

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash

I wish I could say I have transmuted my divine rage into ‘love and acceptance’ but that’s just not the case.

And I’m not sorry, I could not be more un-sorry, in fact, I have been quiet and complicit for far too long. I’ve kept quiet, sat on my hands and swallowed waay too much for what seems like many lifetimes.

I’m done.

This International Women’s Day pounds like a powerful gavel on a marble slate.

It announces very loudly to me: ENOUGH!

I’ve had enough of Boss Babes, ‘Entrepreneurs in Heels’ and the catered meals where we ‘celebrate’ women. Yes, it’s good to see folks you haven’t seen in awhile and yes, celebrate the accomplishments of your friends, but also be there when they fall, when they perceive everything as failure because capitalist, patriarchal and colonial ideals tell them they’re not perfect just as the human they are. Sit with them. Sit beside them. You don’t need to say anything. Sit in the discomfort and think about why it’s uncomfortable. Create an atmosphere where it’s safe to let their guard down and speak truthfully about what’s troubling them.

Tell them their success is not measured by anyone else, especially not strangers. They don’t have to explain their choices, their pivots, their joys and their sorrows to anyone unless they want to. And they should be celebrated when they do.

Let’s celebrate humanness, openness, willingness to get things wrong, to weep, to express rage, to start again, to fail, to risk everything and gain nothing.

Tell them the biggest success is to live their lives full of joy, liberation and fulfillment of the soul, it’s not predicated on the validation or acknowledgement of a certain echelon or ‘upper level’ of heirarchy.

Can we just eliminate the heirarchy all together?

Can women just come together as equals, no matter where they are in life and no matter what their past was? Can we stop hiding our fullsome experience that came from horrible loss and pain?

Can we celebrate women, not by societal accomplishments (nor sacrifices - code for volunteerism - because that’s another assumption) for just showing up as themselves, fully and completely, authentically just them, without all the labels like wife, mom, community ‘president’, CEO, director or whatever?

What if folks never introduced you by what you perceive as your accomplishments, but by what you lived through, what you endured, felt, acknowledged, moved through and released? What if you announced that you’re in the throes of a panic attack or you’re not sure how you’re going to pay rent, or for your kids’ activities? What if we wore those things like badges of courage instead wracked with shame? ENOUGH!

Women can and will come together. There is a huge shift happening. I know you can feel it.

Maybe like me, you’ve also had enough of pedophiles erasing victims and their stories, the sexualization of women. I’m not just talking about the Epstein files, I’m talking about the thousands of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two(2) Spirit people in so-called Canada. I’m talking about the femicides that have become an epidemic, particularly in small, rural and remote communities, the intimate partner violence that still continues and permeates in 2026. I carry part of this because I, like many of us, have had a creepy uncle, coworker, neighbour or even family member who was suspected (or proven) of sexually inappropriate behaviour but everyone (including me) kept silent. ENOUGH!

I’ve had enough of white nationalists quietly gathering, training, intimidating folks and getting away with it. This includes female journalists, transexual folx, allies and anyone who dare to challenge the ideology. They show up at protests, ready to disrupt and intimidate with violence, so many stay home to stay safe. Again, I have had the safety and comfort of being an ally. ENOUGH!

I’ve had enough of female athletes working twice as hard as men to even have professional level teams to play on, and men belittling their accomplishments. Not only that, but last week, a CBC Hockey Night in Canada broadcaster, Elliotte Friedman, wryly talking about approaching a trade deadline and uttering, “It’s like dating, the more you say ‘no’ the more attractive they are.” One CBC journalist wrote about it, but I dare you to Google and find anyone else who even talked about it.

The podcast Your Weekly Breakdown really nailed it I think.

One Toronto radio talk show host, Newstalk 1010’s Jim Richards, who I have found to be fair and balanced previously, posed a question about it on his Facebook page. After I weighed in, and hockey bros verbally attacked me personally (I’m all for respectfully challenging my point, that’s important dialogue, but attacking me personally? One guy told me to go make a snow angel and relax.) Jim first announced he would be deleting it, then removed the post. So the opportunity was lost. He said he was friends with the broadcaster in question and Friedman just wasn’t “that guy”, which is the whole problem. I kept saying, acknowledge that you SEE that it’s a problematic statement. Women are gaslit on the daily. Acknowledge that you SEE how this can be interpreted by women. We’re ALL watching to see who will have the courage to start changing the culture.

My husband is a big hockey fan. We’ve had long discussions since the gold-winning US Olympic men’s hockey team laughed at the US president’s joke about inviting the also-gold-winning US women’s team, about the culture. Which one of your husbands (including mine), dads, sons, uncles or brothers will be the ones to stand up in your absence, where there’s no women around? I can tell you I presently don’t speak with my dad because he refuses to acknowledge his problematic sexist behaviour towards ANY woman who tries to help him. No, he’s NOT too old to learn. No one is. ENOUGH!

Canadian Prime Minister Carney’s 2025 government eliminated the Ministry for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) portfolio, consolidating it under the Heritage Ministry. Carney also declared an end to Canada's explicitly "feminist foreign policy," . His government later reinstated the ministry but only because of backlash from Canadian women’s groups (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, Women’s Shelters Canada, YWCA Canada and Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights) who wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister.

I recently watched a documentary about feminism in Canada called Status Quo? The Unfinished Business of Feminism in Canada. It was made 14 years ago. Watching it, I couldn’t help thinking, what has happened since then? Have women advanced? On the contrary.

I knew about The Abortion Caravan in Canada but didn’t know until recently that there was a documentary about that too. Here’s the audio on CBC.

“ On April 27, 1970, members of the Vancouver Women’s Caucus (VWC) set off on a journey to Ottawa in an “Abortion Caravan” to protest the new abortion law. Under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal government passed an Omnibus Bill in 1969 that reformed the Criminal Code, decriminalizing contraception and legalizing consensual homosexual sex as well as abortion. Legal abortion was now possible only when a doctor referred a pregnant woman to a Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC) made up of three to five doctors in an accredited hospital”

I am finally finishing the book Mary Magdalene Revealed and while I’ve been mostly atheist or agnostic most of my adult life for lots of reasons I’ve written about previously, this tells me a lot about how women’s voices have been literally erased from history. At the same time, I’m also reading The Creation of Patriarchy by Greta Lerner. I’ve been trying to get my hands on the works of Jeanette Winterson, after hearing an audio interview and author’s reading of her own memoir, Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

Previously, hubs and I have spent the odd week lakeside in small towns on the shores of Lake Huron. On rainy days, we’d visit local museums. It always struck me how the pictures and ‘artifacts’ were all from affluent families. Our own community is gathering archives to preserve history and is asking residents to sift through attics and basements for old photos and documents.

This is an important time in history. What happens in the coming weeks, let alone the coming years, will be critical information for a future generation.

Use your voice. Interrogate, question, document.

Women’s voices are so important, especially now.

Start gathering, start a women’s circle, maybe just in your own home or on your own deck, or even in a local park.

Genuine, unwavering, unconditional support for each other is critical. We are so much stronger together, not in competition with one another.

Every day we remain separated from one another is another day patriarchy wins.

Lean in to the tough conversations. I’m taking my own advice here too.

There is not a more imminent time then now to gather our voices.

ENOUGH ALREADY! F%$K!