Women! ICJW stands for Women’s Rights!

This week’s extraordinary push by women to be recognised as equal citizens coincides with the world’s biggest meeting of women at the UN Commission on the Status of Women based in New York.

In the past few days huge public gatherings of women in Britain and Australia have responded to recent events in their communities – murder, rape – highlighting the ever-present lack of personal security which women continue to deal with in their daily lives.

Female lack of protection and personal safety have increased through the past year, while domestic killings and widespread raping have reached shocking levels.

Fear and unwillingness to acknowledge inappropriate actions committed by males, including teenagers and men of all ages, have now erupted into a huge catalogue of abuse sustained by girls and women across past decades.

As ICJW Status of Women committee member Laurel Ginges states: ‘The now normalised hardcore pornography culture links to male entitlement, rape culture, gendered violence and gender inequality’.

Educating against the centuries – old male sense of entitlement is a major task which society must undertake to enable a balance between genders.

Will today’s UN Commission on the Status of Women assist in moving this forward?

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INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL of JEWISH WOMEN comprises 35 affiliate organisations of Jewish women globally, ICJW work by women for women is a major platform.

ICJW Status of Women committee provides a global picture of matters relating to women and girls.

Robyn Lenn OAM, ICJW Chair, Status of Women