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International Women’s Day

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Palestinian women rally to mark International Women's Day in Gaza City on March 8, 2011. (Photo: Ashraf Amra/APA Images)

This International Women’s Day, let us affirm that there can be no free homeland without free women, without free queers, and without free children as they rise above binaries, reach out across boundaries, laugh at society’s archaisms, and model the alternative.

Palestinian engineer, Zeina Abu Salama, 24, displays succulent gifts on the International Women's Day in Jenin in the West Bank, on March 8, 2021. (Photo: Oday Daibes/APA Images)

Every year, workplaces in Israel distribute thousands of flowers to show their appreciation for their female employees on International Women’s Day. At the same time, these workplaces give women fewer opportunities to succeed compared to men.

On March 8, women in Gaza marked International Women’s Day along with their counterparts in the countries across the globe. But in Gaza, International Women’s Day is less of a celebration and more of a harsh and painful reminder of three wars in the last decade, and years of siege. Laila Qarmout, 57, a member of the General Union of Palestinian Women said: “Women are indoctrinated from the age of five to see ourselves as less than our brothers or less than our husbands. Despite this, we have struggled a lot against the world’s only long-running occupation. Women know too well the iniquity of repression.”