"New women, free women"

Commemorating Women's Day brings us to remember the various denunciations of women workers against labour exploitation. On 8 March 1908 in New York, in the middle of a labour strike, 129 women died in a fire in the "Cotton Textile Factory". The cause of the fire was attributed to the factory owner in retaliation for the strike.  This event initiated the commemoration of the struggle of working women and in 1977 the United Nations declared it as the "International Working Women's Day" every 8th March.

In this way, we can recognise that despite the decades that have passed, women still do not have the same rights as men, there is still a way to achieve equality of rights.

As women of faith we have the challenge to name ourselves because "what is not named does not exist", to promote spaces for dialogue, reflection, to continue building ourselves from a humanising perspective with the Gospel at the centre. Let us remember that Jesus had women among his favourites. He realised that the religious system oppressed them and broke with those religious norms that legitimised this oppression. He dared to heal them, to talk to them, to eat with them, to defend them from those who felt morally superior to them. With his actions, gestures and words he gave them back their life, the dignity of being women, of being daughters of God.

It is up to us to continue to follow her path and to continue to strive for this Kingdom of equality. On this day when we commemorate the daily struggle of so many women without a voice, without justice, dead, victims of abuse and impunity, let us be prophets and mystics "until equality becomes customary".

Let us pray with the lyrics of the song "Mujeres Nuevas". Let us bring to our memory and heart so many women we knew and know, who were and are builders of peace, who lived and live existence as a risk of a long journey, who fought and fight for hope, who wished and wish to be new women without brakes or chains, simply FREE WOMEN and let us ask the God of Life for a "big heart to love, strong to fight" for the ideals of the Gospel.

Song: “Mujeres Nuevas”  (“New womens”) (Youtube)

Adaptation from “Danos un corazón”- P. Cristóbal Fones

Sr. Esther Fernández FSV