Women with power have a duty to their poorer sisters
IT was gratifying to many people to see Naomi Osaka, winner of this year’s US Open tennis title, use her platform to draw a lot of attention to the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement.
For those unfamiliar with her, she is an immensely successful and wealthy young sportswoman of Asian background.
Quite simply, she did not confine her activities to tennis for the two-week campaign but emerged onto the court for her several matches wearing a mask bearing the many different names of black people killed by white police.
Personally, however, I was a bit disappointed that she did not choose an alternative cause to champion .
I say this only because the Black Lives Matter movement has gained so much traction now that there is a danger that many other urgent causes are being pushed aside entirely.
As a female, I would have liked her to focus on gender-based violence. Violence in all shapes and forms is a true global scourge, and figures show that the number of people murdered each year globally is absolutely enormous.
The number of men murdered far exceeds the number of women but an examination of the figures tells its own sad and tragic story.
In 2018, for example, the UN reported that 50,000 women worldwide were killed by intimate partners or family members – a great many of them mothers in their own homes.
All indications are that this figure will be well exceeded in 2020 because of the Covid-19 lockdown. Women of power and influence – of whom there are many – have a duty to their poor, underprivileged and powerless sisters, of whom there are very many more.
JOAN GRENNAN, Co. Sligo.