Each year on March 8th, the world comes together to celebrate International Women’s Day, a day meant to recognize women’s achievements and highlight the issue of equality. It is essential that we uplift women everywhere and recognize the trailblazers in women’s history. However, it is difficult to celebrate this day without focusing on the intersectionality of feminism: “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage”. There is a wave of hate flowing across the nation, targeting Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI). Women have a long history of facing prejudice and oppression. Accordingly, we must come together to protect one another regardless of identity so that this discrimination becomes erased from current society.
Pui Gee Ng Lee died after she and her husband were attacked, a 52-year-old woman required stitches after she was shoved to the ground, and Noel Quintana required almost 100 stitches after he was slashed across the face with box cutters. All of these events happened within the past three months. Anti-Asian hate crimes have skyrocketed 1900% since the beginning of the pandemic, and a terrifying amount of over 3000 incidents have been reported. These hate crimes were only encouraged by a government that spread the narrative of ‘the Wuhan virus’ or ‘China flu’, deeming the entire AAPI community to be diseased. Everyone is facing the harsh consequences of this pandemic. AAPI are not a scapegoat for your problems.
There is so much that you can do to help support the Stop Asian Hate movement. You have already taken the first step on becoming informed. If you experience or witness a hate crime, report it to www.StopAAPIHate.org. Most importantly, use your voice to amplify these issues.
Empowered women empower all women, not just the women who look similar to them. On a day meant to highlight equality and honour overcoming prejudice, it is our duty to support the women and everyone else in the AAPI community during this time of hostility. Grace Lee Boggs, an Asian American intersectional feminist, said it best: “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another”.