opening thoughts:international women's day Robert Arnold writes
producers: Dave Scott and Stephanie Collins
opening thoughts International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender equality.
today is International Women's Day(March
it is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender equality. Robert Arnold aka Defiance 13
begins this way:
" Tomorrow is International Women’s Day.
That is how I will begin … because naming the day matters.
It matters because too often the world has tried to make women disappear quietly into the background of history. Their work erased. Their courage minimized. Their suffering dismissed as the cost of living in a world that was never built with them in mind.
International Women’s Day is not just a celebration.
It is a recognition.
It is a moment where we stop pretending that equality arrived long ago and admit something far more honest and far more painful … women have had to fight for every inch of dignity they have ever been given.
And far too often they have had to fight alone.
The truth is not comfortable. It never has been.
and he ends this way:
Thank you to the activists and organizers who refuse to let injustice become normal.
Because the work is not finished.
It is not even close.
But there is something powerful that I have learned watching the women in my life and in my community.
Oppression may delay justice … but it cannot extinguish courage.
Ridicule may attempt to silence truth … but it cannot erase it.
And every time the world has tried to diminish women … they have answered in the same way.
They rise.
They rise with courage.
They rise with compassion.
They rise with a stubborn, beautiful refusal to let cruelty define the future.
And because of that … because of the courage of women who refused to accept the limits placed upon them … the world is already better than it once was.
Not perfect.
Not finished.
But better.
And that means something extraordinary.
It means hope is still alive.
It means the future is still being written.
And if history has taught us anything … it is that when women rise, the world moves closer to justice.
So today … I honor the women who fought before us.
And stand beside the women fighting now.
And promise the girls growing up in this world that they will inherit something better than what their mothers and grandmothers were given.
Because women have never stopped rising.
And because they rise … the light keeps breaking through the darkness."
part one: Len Hyman and Bill Tilles
Leonard S. Hyman is an economist and financial analyst specializing in the energy sector. He headed utility equity research at a major brokerage house and has provided advice on industry organization, regulation, privatization, risk management and finance to investment bankers, governments and private firms, including one effort to place nuclear fusion reactors on the moon. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst and author, co-author or editor of six books including America’s Electric Utilities: Past, Present and Future and Energy Risk Management: A Primer for the Utility Industry.
William I. Tilles is a senior industry advisor and speaker on energy and finance. After starting his career at a bond rating agency, he turned to equities and headed utility equity research at two major brokerage houses and then became a portfolio manager investing in long/short global utility equities. For a time he ran the largest long/short utilities equity book in the world. Before going into finance, Mr. Tilles taught political science .
part two:
