A Few Questions for International Women’s Day

Jul 312012
 
English: NCO speaks at International Women's D...

U.S. Air Force photo/Capt. Stacie N. Shafran. Photo credit: Wikipedia

Not long ago I read the following reminder (paraphrased):  If you want to discover your REAL priorities take a look at your calendar.

Whether we like it or not, behavior doesn’t lie: what is most important to us gets most of our attention.  So what does it mean that most Americans diligently observe Mothers’ Day while International Women’s Day often goes by unnoticed?

A few years ago, while traveling in Viet Nam, a Vietnamese friend asked me about the lukewarm response he was getting from  American colleagues when he wished them “Happy Women’s Day.”  He said they were reacting as if they did not know what he was talking about. If fact, since they continued to ask him about something called “Mother’s Day” he was questioning his (very fluent) English.
Could this be another of those “tricks” so often played by the  English language?  Are  “woman” and “mother” different names for the same thing?

Why bring it up?  What kind of example do we set for our children when we honor only one of the roles that women have in our society?   And what about that focus? Is it purely sentimental or do our practices (in business, in medicine, in the community) match up with the care and concern our culture claims to have for Moms?