Today is International Women’s Day! In addition to my work online and face-to-face with women as well as with the products offered by our shop, I support two resources that help make every day “international women’s day.” I sponsor a woman through Women for Women International and I keep multiple microloans going at Kiva – Loans that change lives. We started making Kiva loans in 2012 when we covered economic freedom in the Cakes for the Queen of Heaven feminist spirituality class I was teaching at the time. We decided to put our money where our mouths were and make a collective loan, from our women’s circle to a women’s circle somewhere else in the world. We collected $50 from the members of the circle and I made two microloans to two different women’s groups, both in Senegal. A few more women contributed in later months, I contributed another $25 of my own and we got a $25 referral credit, and I’ve steadily kept microloans going there ever since, loaning a total of $650 to 26 different women’s groups in 19 countries since we began. The cool thing is that this did not cost me $650, instead it is the same, original money from that long-ago Cakes class that I keep relending as soon as my Kiva account builds up to $25 in repayments. There are 7 loans currently going, from what was originally only $50. Just a drop in the bucket. I encourage you to do this too!

More International Women’s Day Resources:

• Global Sisterhood Circle unify meditation and peace circles (around the world, including in my own local community!)
• Discounted Kindle versions of the wonderful books published by Womancraft Publishing.
• Karen Moon is hard at work on a fabulous app to help you find a Women’s Circle near you. She also has a blog with lots of Women’s Circle articles and resources.
• Instagram giveaways today from Brigid’s Grove

A collection of recent women’s circle-oriented blog posts and resources:

• Hands: Why Does a Face-to-Face Women’s Circle Matter?
• Things to do in the Red Tent: Circular Moon Calendars and Moonwheels for Cycle Tracking
• Passing the Rattle + how to make one
• Do Women’s Circles Actually Matter?
• Womanrunes and Women’s Circles – Brigid’s Grove

Past posts about Women’s Day:

• Small Business Saturday: Shining Year Meditation and International Women’s Day | Talk Birth
• International Women’s Day: Prayer for Mothers | Talk Birth

“The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It’s so incredible what women can do…Birthing naturally, as most women do around the globe, is a superhuman act. You leave behind the comforts of being human and plunge back into being an animal. My friend’s partner said, ‘Birth is like going for a swim in the ocean. Will there be a riptide? A big storm? Or will it just be a beautiful, sunny little dip?’ Its indeterminate length, the mystery of its process, is so much a part of the nature of birth. The regimentation of a hospital birth that wants to make it happen and use their gizmos to maximum effect is counter to birth in general.”

–Ani DiFranco interviewed in Mothering magazine, May/June 2008

Source: International Women’s Day, Birth Activism, and Feminism | Talk Birth