International Women’s Day
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
Today is International Women’s Day. Celebrated since 1911, It’s commemorated by the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. And wouldn’t you know it? The ever-industrious US Baha’i website has a few stories up to mark the occasion including a profile of the late Patricia Locke, who was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2004; a review of a musical created by Baha’i Dorothy Marcic called “Respect: A Musical Journey of Women”, and a review of Phyllis Peterson’s book The Heroic Female Spirit.
The National Spiritual Assembly of the United States also happens to be a founding member of the Working Group on Ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women(CEDAW), described as an international bill of rights for women.
And The Universal House of Justice had this to say about the advancement ot women in The Promise of Wolrd Peace:
“The emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important, though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace. The denial of such equality perpetrates an injustice against one half of the world’s population and promotes in men harmful attitudes and habits that are carried from the family to the workplace, to political life, and ultimately to international relations.
There are no grounds, moral, practical, or biological, upon which such denial can be justified. Only as women are welcomed into full partnership in all fields of human endeavor will the moral and psychological climate be created in which international peace can emerge.”
For those of us who came into the Baha'i Faith through the ever popular 
