IWD

International Women's Day (IWD). I am against these 'days', often sponsored by the UN, because they seem to trivialise the often important message that goes with them.

IWD is one of the oldest, said to have been started in 1917 by Russian women demonstrating against the price and non-availability of bread. It is a case in point: they were still complaining about the same thing 75 years later.

This year the sub-theme of International Women's Day is violence against women. You won't get many politicians arguing in favour of it, yet it still goes on, and not just in third world societies. A woman who worked for the Samaritans revealed to me (they're not supposed to say anything about their work) that typically the man responsible for violence in the home was middle class, often a former officer in the forces. I don't know, perhaps the other women don't complain, which is even worse.

I suppose today might make us think a little about it. But we're not really doing anything. And there's not really anything we can do.