WHAT EVERY WOMAN NEEDS

Just a reminder: Mother’s Day in the UAE is on March 21. (Pick up next week’s edition of Friday for some great gift ideas.) There is another reason I am dropping this little reminder: It’s in case Mother’s Day is being confused with International Women’s Day, which fell on March 8. They are not the same thing – in fact, I believe part of the reason we have Women’s Day is to highlight the fact that women, although many of them are mothers, are not ONLY mothers.

Women are many things – more diverse than the mind can even imagine. They may have careers, they may have families, they may have tattoos or short hair or no hair; to be honest, I don’t think any of those attributes are even relevant to the conversation about Women’s Day, which has one purpose: To remind us that the one thing that ALL women should have are rights. We can’t only afford women rights because of their possible or actual role as childbearers.

We invited you to write in as well as comment on social media, about what you think about Women’s Day, and your response was astounding (we couldn’t fit everyone in – go to fridaymagazine.ae to read all the insights). We even had someone send in their artwork; and there were poems. I personally did not agree with all of them (specifically, the ode to women being ‘ornaments’), but that’s the point of Story Tellers – to share our diverse views on a wide range of topics.

In case Mother’s Day is being CONFUSED with International Women’s Day, which fell on March 8 – they are NOT the same thing

It makes for great reading every week.

Set aside some time this weekend for this issue’s other long, great reads. There are new worlds to discover, whether it’s in the wintry north of the globe, chasing reindeer (you can do this until next month!) or on the punky outskirts of Tokyo, or in the midst of space with a British comedian and a genius’s daughter.