Minute for Mission: International Women’s Day

March 8, 2021

Members of the Presbyterian/PW delegation to the 63rd session (2019) of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Rick Copley

International Women’s Day is a day set aside each year to address challenges that are unique to women and girls. For 2021, U.N. Women has chosen the theme “Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World.” According to U.N. Women, this theme “celebrates the tremendous efforts by women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Readers are only too familiar with living with this virus and its consequences. To date, in the U.S., more than 500,000 people have died because of COVID-19. Globally, 2 million have succumbed to this illness. Behind the statistics, of course, are stories and realities. Although both men and women are called to deal with the multiple of challenges related to COVID-19, women around the world are struggling with record job and income loss, and many (even women who still have employment) are shouldering the brunt of child care, care-giving and household work. From U.N. Women: “In addition to persistent pre-existing social and systemic barriers to women’s participation and leadership, new barriers have emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. Across the world women are facing increased domestic violence, unpaid care duties, unemployment and poverty. Despite women making up a majority of front-line workers, there is disproportionate and inadequate representation of women in national and global COVID-19 policy spaces.”

As the world’s people adopt a “new normal,” let us pray and work toward a “new normal” that is equitable for all. International Women’s Day reminds us to reflect on our responsibility to make this world a just world.

Carissa Herold, Presbyterian Women

Let us join in prayer for: 

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Richard Embry, Administrative Services Group (A Corp)
Barry Ensign-George, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray:

Generous and loving God, we thank you for your gift of Christ and for his ministry of abundant compassion and generosity. We ask that you bless each of us, female and male, so that we “may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)