i am woman

UPDATED 2: howsy, me good blogging mate had a very nice post paying tribute to women socio-political bloggers.

UPDATED:  the united nations’ theme for IWD is ‘ending impunity for violence against girls and women’.
for those in penang, please check out the women’s centre for change (WCC) website for the IWD programme on this sunday, 11 march 25 march, sunday, at queensbay mall, from 8.00am to 1.00pm. there will be a ‘walk against voilence’ community walk at the sea front of queensbay mall.

I am woman – I am invincible – I am strong – I am woman

logo taken from international women’s day website.

song:  i am woman
artiste: helen reddy
lyrics and music by helen reddy and ray burton

I am woman, hear me roar
In numbers too big to ignore
And I know too much to go back an’ pretend
’cause I’ve heard it all before
And I’ve been down there on the floor
No one’s ever gonna keep me down again

CHORUS
Oh yes I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman

You can bend but never break me
’cause it only serves to make me
More determined to achieve my final goal
And I come back even stronger
Not a novice any longer
’cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul

CHORUS

I am woman watch me grow
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin’ arms across the land
But I’m still an embryo
With a long long way to go
Until I make my brother understand

Oh yes I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to I can face anything
I am strong (strong)
I am invincible (invincible)
I am woman
Oh, I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong

FADE…

I am woman
I am invincible
I am strong
I am woman

—————————

the above is a song dedicated to all women on account of today’s international woman’s day.  i love this song very much. apart from its very meaningful lyrics, the music of the song is nice too. initially i just wanted to put the first 2 paragraphs here and link you to the full lyrics at its site but then i felt that the lyrics are too good not to be posted up in my blog… so there you have it… a song composed partly by helen reddy when she was searching for a song that would express her growing passion for female empowerment, so according to wikipedia. (picture taken from wikipedia)

as today is international women’s day, i’ll speak on two remarkable women i admire most.

first and foremost of course it is none other than my own mother. my mother is now 77 years old and she still cooks and wash for us (my sister and i), not forgetting cleaning up the house now and then. isn’t that just amazing? of course we help too whenever we can but not with the cooking since we don’t cook!… and we are working 6 days a week, no time to cook.

my mother has 8 children and i’m the 4th child.  she went through a lot of hardship taking care of us when we were children as we came from a poor family. my parents couldn’t afford to feed the extra mouth, so my 4 younger siblings were placed in an orphanage to be taken care of and later adopted by australians… all at a age of under 5.

this means my mother and father raised up 4 children, and i had become the youngest after my 4 younger siblings were adopted. as my father was a very strict person and being the conservative type who placed more importance in bringing home bread and butter, he left the taking care of us children to my mother. (this was one reason we all grew up closer to our mother than our father). oh and don’t forget since we were poor, my mother had to work too and before i started school, she had to bring me to her work-place because there were nobody at home to take care of me (my other 3 siblings were in school).

early in the morning before my mother went to work, she had to cook porridge for us children to take in the afternoon, when we came back from our morning school. she usually had only one dish for us – either fish or preserved lettuce. in the evening when she came back from work, she cooked rice with two dishes.

my mother went through some hardship raising us up. for one thing, as i said we were poor and for another, my father was a bad-tempered man who used to unleash his anger at my mother (but my father loved us – his wife and children) all the same.

of course now my mother is not working anymore but she will go to my brother’s house every 3 days in alternate week to cook/clean for my brother’s children when my brother’s wife is away working.

my mother spends her free time doing lots of handicraft and needlework. i once blog about some of the things she made here.

the other woman i admire is mother teresa, the so called ‘saint of the gutters’. i had blog about her before so  i won’t write anything else about her here except to point you to the post i made on her.
the one i admire
(there were comments there but the comments had disappeared after i moved the post from blogger to here).
and here you can read a poem i wrote about mother teresa.

i was reminded of the women’s international day via an email from susan loone, who also sent me the above logo here. susan and marina mahathir had initiated this ‘women’s bloggers unite’ on occasion of international women’s day, the email of which they sent to other female bloggers too.

speaking of marina, anyone remember what happened on international women’s day last year? she wrote an article in which for the first time, the star rejected to print (er… well in the end they did print the letter but after some heavy editing). i blog about it here.

let us all spare a thought to the women in the world today, especially those close to you. also, remember those women who were oppressed like those in countries like iran, afghanistan, pakistan.

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, RULES THE WORLD!
of course this is specially true during those olden days when only women takes care of the children (like in my childhood days, where i told you it was my mother who took care of us) but in this modern time, the man (husband) also rocks the cradle! so let me think of another cliche…

BEHIND EVERY SUCCESSFUL MAN, THERE IS A WOMAN!