Two Questions to Make International Women’s Day Relatable
My mother on a hike in Bow Lake Provincial Park
By Jonathon Reed
I recently came across the Canadian government’s #BecauseOfYou campaign, which has an interactive website celebrating women who have made an impact in Canada. I spent some time thinking about how I might use it as a resource for engaging boys in International Women’s Day. It undeniably highlights important stories within Canadian history—Abby Hoffman’s exclusion from all-boys sports, for example, or Shannen Koostachin’s advocacy for First Nations education. But I think it’s limited in that it doesn’t give boys a personal entry point to connect with International Women’s Day.
Let me give a couple examples. I only found out after her death that my adopted grandmother was an unprecedented female academic at the forefront of neonatal research and the first nurse in Canada to be awarded the prestigious National Health Research Scholar Award. She passed away when I was 14, so I never got a chance to learn firsthand about her impact on Canada or the struggles that she faced as a woman pursuing research in the mid-20th century.
In part because of that missed opportunity, I’ve had many conversations with my mother about her impact on the forestry industry—from planting one million trees as part of Ontario’s 50 Million Tree Program to serving as General Manager of the Ontario Woodlot Association—as well as the gender-based barriers she’s faced as one of the few women in her field.
My mother and sister discussing trees’ growth patterns
So I’m thinking about how to make International Women’s Day about recognizing female role models in boys’ lives, and helping build boys’ awareness of their achievements within a context of different forms of sexism, both historical and ongoing. I think that exploring personal connections is one powerful way to do it. So this is what I’m asking:
Who is a female role model in your own life? Why?
What do you know about her experiences of inequality?
Asking both of these questions will help International Women’s Day matter to boys. #BecauseOfYou.
ICYMI This Week
Study: Boosting soft skills is better than raising test scores (The Hechinger Report)
Sex education: ‘We can’t let teachers perpetuate a homophobic or transphobic narrative’ (The Guardian)
Welcome to Equiterra, where gender equality is real (UN Women)
Written by Next Gen Men Program Manager Jonathon Reed as part of Learnings & Unlearnings, a weekly newsletter reflecting on our experiences working with boys and young men. Subscribe to get Learnings & Unlearnings delivered to your email inbox.