I’m celebrating International Women’s Day in a small way. (That’s me: subtle.) I’m going to brunch with a friend, who is also female. That’s right; we’re going out in public without being chaperoned by our fathers, brothers or husbands. We’re wearing what we like. We didn’t ask permission. And, we’re doing it without any fear of chastisement, abuse, unwanted sexual advances or arrest. We can do this because we live in a country whose laws are founded on Christian principles.

Those principles include the following:

• Women are just as valuable as men.
• Women have the same legal rights as men.
• Women should be treated with respect.
• Women are encouraged to be educated, to have a career (if they want one) and to make choices for their lives.
• Women have the freedom to enjoy the sunlight, to interact with others, to have friends, to shop, to read and so on, just like men.
• Women have the right to do those things in public, while expecting that they will be protected by other sane, civilized citizens and by the law.
• If women are attacked while doing those things, either sexually, physically (other than sexually), verbally or all three the law will punish the offenders (the ones doing the assault) not the victims.

I’m grateful for the country I live in. I’m grateful that over the centuries my religion and my culture has grown in understanding, compassion and wisdom and has recognised the rights of women and children to be safe, to be respected and to be given the same opportunities as men. Okay, we’ve still a way to go but, thankfully, we are getting there.

My heart goes out to all the women and girls who are still denied the right to be considered as fully human as males; who are denied access to education; who are doomed to lives shut up in the family home and then the marital home with no chance to discover the world around them; women who are raped and then punished for being raped; women who are doomed from a very young age to be abused, browbeaten, threatened and ill-treated in so many other ways, simply because they’re female, and all the women and girls who are valued only as a commodity and a baby machine.

So, while I’m having brunch with my friend, I will toast you all with my cup of tea and I will wish you better days. I will also, silently, thank all the men in my life who treat me with kindness and respect. God bless you all.