This year’s IWD theme—Equal rights, equal opportunity: Progress for all.—is a lovely sound bite of a reminder about justice and its widespread benefit.  And yet, despite being a proponent of these ideals, I find the theme rather annoying.

Why?  Because it falls short, and we can’t afford to fall short.  Despite all the progress made, women continue to be underpaid, brutalized and abused, underrepresented in positions of power, dismissed and undervalued in countless ways.  If we are going to effect meaningful change (and we really do have a lot of work left to do when it comes to human rights), then the messages we send have to convey this need.

Yes, we must have equal rights.  But those rights must be consistently upheld and enforced.  In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution assured the legal right to vote for each citizen regardless of race, color, or previous enslavement.  In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment assured women the legal right to vote.  Lots of people in power still found ways to deny individuals, especially African-Americans, their right to vote, and the National Voting Rights Act of 1965 was established to end voter prerequisites and other discriminatory practices that denied or abridged citizens’ right to vote.  Despite all of these efforts, a voter registration gap still exists between white Americans and minority Americans, and many states have created procedural barriers to voter registration that impact minorities today.

This all segues very nicely into the topic of equal opportunity.  Certainly, equal rights are not enough.  Possessing a right without the means to exercise that right is nearly identical to not possessing the right in the first place.  You might have the right to vote, but if you aren’t able to register to vote or navigate the voting systems themselves to actually cast your vote because of barriers (purposefully or unwittingly imposed by our historically sexist, racist society), then you still don’t get to vote.

Sure, equal access to opportunities, information, and other resources is crucial to ensuring human rights, but is it enough?  Let’s say you and I are running a marathon.  I show up for the race with my moisture-wicking outfit, my high-tech running shoes, and my well-nourished body.  I’ve run many marathons, the crowd is really cheering for me, and I’ve got a network of people who are going to support me in many different ways along the marathon route.  You, on the other hand, were just barely able to scrape together what was needed to be a part of the marathon.  No fancy gear, no previous marathon experience, no supporters at the race, you are relying on spirit alone to get you to the finish line.  Many would argue that this is still a fair race.  What if the reason that you don’t have the same resources that I have is because I and/or my affiliates sabotaged you every chance we could?  Some of us have privileges obtained at the expense of others through abuses of power, past and present.  In short, we’ve made certain that some people are not on an equal footing with others, and rectifying that requires more than equal opportunity; it requires equity in opportunity.

Progress for all, the last piece of this year’s theme, feels one part hopeful outcome and one part plea to convince people that, yes, being fair in our interactions with others is good, not just for them but really, really for us too.  These three little words convey such a sad, discouraging commentary on who we are.  Are we so self-interested that we can’t fathom the idea of doing something that benefits someone else without necessarily seeing a clear benefit to ourselves?

Once again, I’d like to push for a bit more than the “progress for all” idea.  Progress for all isn’t going to happen without progress by all.  That means you and me, in our ordinary, everyday lives.  We must do more than remember and applaud the efforts of extraordinary individuals—like Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, Dorothea Dix, Sojourner Truth, and Prudence Crandall.  We have a responsibility to actually behave as if each of us is an extraordinary individual—because each of us is.