I’d like to begin by wishing everyone a wonderful International Women’s Day (IWD). For just about a hundred years, March 8th has been set aside to commemorate the contributions (great and small) made by women everywhere. For a really interesting short video, produced by Russia Today, on the history of IWD in the Soviet Union and Russia, click here, and if you’d like to see a country-by-country list of events planned for the day, stay on that same page and scroll down just a touch. The list will be on the right-hand side of your screen.
Last Friday, I was sitting in one of my favorite restaurants in my neighbor, a place I’ve blogged about before called The Green Mill. While I was waiting for my lentil soup to come out of the kitchen, I was looking at the day’s edition of The Egyptian Gazette, one of several English-language newspapers published in this North African country. (By the way, the soup I was preparing myself to eat is also made by the Turks and is called “mercimek.” Unfortunately, I don’t know what the Egyptians call it, but I’ll be sure to find out as soon as I can.) Anyway, so I was reading the newspaper and came across an article that had a nice little factoid: It seems that women are the primary breadwinners in 60% of all Egyptian households. My immediate reaction was that that percentage seemed too high, but then I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that it sounded about right.
After downing my soup, I strolled back home, got online and did a little research for my next blog topic. While doing so, I ran across the clip I’ve embedded. It’s such a nice little video that I don’t want to include any spoilers here. I will say this, though. It shows a wonderful example of why this world needs a day that is set aside for thanking women for doing all the things that they do.
Tags: Women's Issues
