BUONA FESTA DELLA DONNA

It's International Women's Day and in Italy that means there is mimosa blossom - or creative representations of mimosa blossom - everywhere. As I've written before, the person who inspired this tradition was Teresa Mattei, one of the "Mothers of the Constitution" and very glad I am of it, because on this day all the bars and pastry shops have mimosa-inspired cakes while shops and businesses offer discounts to women and even give us little bouquets of mimosa. This morning I didn't have to pay for a coffee in my local bar because the owner of a nearby business had paid for all the women's coffees for the whole morning!

On a more serious note, here is a poem I have written for this day:

International Women's Day 2024

A Poem for Every Woman

This poem is for every woman.
It's for every woman who has had an idea ignored
and listened to the applause when a man suggested the same thing.

It's for every woman who's been told she's too plain or too pretty,

too fat, too thin, too stupid or too clever.

It's for every woman who's walked home 

alone and scared in the dark
with her keys in her hand and her phone at the ready
and quickened her pace as the steps speeded behind her.

It's for every woman who's been cat-called,

derided, belittled, harassed

and gone home weeping

and whose story has not been heard.

It's for Sarah and it's for Giulia

and it's for Tina. It's for the woman

who was nearly my mother-in-law,

whose husband hit her every day

and left her lying in the grate.

It's for Jo and the women MPs

afraid for their safety, less for their beliefs

than because it's women who dare to hold them -

in the United Kingdom, of all countries.

It's for the women who raise awareness,

it's for the writers – for Maya, for Dacia,

for Gloria, Simone and Toni

and so many others.

It's for the 1950s and 60s women

forced to give away their illegitimate children

and never see them again -

- children like me.

It's for the 2020s women,

hostages, soldiers, medics, dissidents,

wives, mothers, facing war, starvation, enduring loss,

in scenarios we believed expunged from our era.

It's for you, Yulia Navalnya.

It's for the women who have

no access to education and read in secret

and the women who fight 

for them. So it's for you, Malala.

It's for every woman whose needs are dismissed

because she's single or childless or old

or different in some way

and does not know where to sit

at the laden festive table.

It's for Janey and the women who make us laugh,

it's for the women who hold us up,

the women who love with us and the women who cry with us.

It's for all the women who fear

and all the women who dare

and the women who fear because they dare.

This poem is for every woman.

Notes

Sarah Everard – kidnapped and killed, aged 33, as she was walking home in London on 3^rd March 2021.

Giulia Cecchettin - brutally killed, aged 22, by her ex-boyfriend in Italy on 11^th November 2023.

Tina Turner (1939-2023) – singer and songwriter who was abused by her first husband.

MPs – Members of Parliament.

Helen Joanne “Jo” Cox - British Member of Parliament who was shot and stabbed to death in Birstall, Yorkshire, UK, by a man with far-right views on 16^th June 2016.

Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) – American writer and civil rights activist.

Dacia Maraini (b. 1936) – Italian writer focussing on women's issues.

Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) – American journalist and a leader of US second-wave feminism.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) – French feminist existentialist writer and political activist.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) – American writer and Nobel Laureate focussing on the Black female experience in the US.

Yulia Borisnovna Navalnya (b. 1976) – economist and widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny (d. 2024). She has vowed to continue her husband's work and on 28^th February 2024, speaking in English, she addressed the European Parliament.

Malala Yousafzai (b. 1997) – Pakistani activist focussing on the rights of girls and women to education. She was shot and very seriously injured in 2012 while on her way home from school. She is the youngest Nobel Laureate.

Janey Godley (b. 1961) – Scottish comedian and writer.

© Pat M. Eggleton 2024

Happy International Women's Day!  Buona Festa della Donna!