Who should we celebrate this month?

You've probably heard that March is International Women's Month. In the United States we are invited to a lot of events celebrating that and urging more attention to women's rights and accomplishments, but maybe we need to look at some other things.
 "We don't want a bigger piece of the pie.  The pie is poisoned," author Kate Millett told a gathering of California feminists in the early 1970s.  Meanwhile, out in the halls, noisy wrangling was going on over whether the group was dominated by middle-class white women and ignoring women of color, the working class and lesbians.  It was.

Around the world, women don't seem to be trying to crack the glass ceiling in politics and corporations; too many are just trying to survive. Several of their stories are told in the 2004 documentary film The Corporation. The filmmakers have generously posted the entire film at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87 and it's available from Netflix or for purchase or lease from http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/ both for private use and for public showings. It's also on Hulu, with limited commercial interruptions, http://www.hulu.com/watch/118169/the-corporation

In India, women have led the fight to end laws against saving crop seeds. Dr. Vandana Shiva, a physicist, is a leader in that effort to preserve an ancient and money-saving tradition and in making water available without corporate control. See her interview with Bill Moyers at www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_shiva.html

In Canada, Maude Barlow has been leading the water fight for many years and opposing free trade agreements which let global corporations control the necessities of life. Grit TV has a good recent interview with her: http://www.grittv.org/2010/02/24/maude-barlow-water-on-the-brain/

By far the most compelling interviews in the film are with the teenage girls who work in sweatshops for U.S-based corporations making our clothes for pennies a day. In 1996, when a human rights organization visited a Honduras sweatshop owned by actress Kathie Lee Gifford, intimidating company security men watched the interviews. The girls surreptitiously gave their pay stubs to the visitors, which led to a federal investigation. Whether Gifford is still exploiting child workers is in dispute, but there's no question that many clothing manufacturers continue to do so.

It's not all bad news. Carpet manufacturer Ray Anderson of Interface Carpets is a convert to sustainability, and has called himself “a plunderer” of resources in speeches to other industrial leaders. He has also reported that the company is doing very well with its new environmentally friendly practices. We need to educate and encourage more men like him, help them to make better pies.