Celebrated on March 8 every year, International Women's Day is a day dedicated to honoring the achievements of women throughout history and all across the globe, and is typically a day for women from all different backgrounds and cultures to band together to fight for gender parity and women's rights.
This year, International Women's Day occurs on a Sunday and will be celebrated with the special 2020 theme, #EachforEqual, celebrating "Generation Equality” and the continued fight for equal rights for women.
“We don’t have an equal world at the moment and women are angry and
concerned about the future,” said UN Women Executive Director Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka in a statement.
“It's an impatience that runs deep, and it has been brewing for
years…..Though we are radically impatient, we are not giving up and we
are hopeful.”
International Women’s Day is a time for reflection of how far women
have come, advocacy for what is still needed, and action to continue
breaking down barriers. With over a century of history, IWD is a growing
movement centered around unity and strength.
International Women’s Day has a rich history dating back 108 years, at the beginning of the 20th Century women across Europe and America
were finding their voice. That wanted and demanded decent jobs, better
pay, and the right to vote or hold public offices, for their
emancipation. It was out of this air of dissatisfaction that
International Women's Day was born.
At the beginning of the 20th Century women across Europe and America were finding their voice. That wanted and demanded decent jobs, better pay, and the right to vote or hold public offices, for their emancipation. It was out of this air of dissatisfaction that International Women's Day was born.In 1909, the United States labour movement and the push for women’s suffrage were both gaining steam. Russian refugee, labor organiser, and journalist Theresa Malkiel served on the women’s committee of the Socialist Party of America. Envisioning a more active role for women within the movement, she declared February 23, 1909 “National Woman’s Day.” New York socialists celebrated with a meeting of about 2,000 people in Manhattan.
“The very first observation of our national Woman’s Day,” recalled activist Meta L,Stern three years later, “proved so successful that Woman’s Day became generally accepted as an annual Socialist holiday.” Along with May Day, she explained, the day stood “for new hopes and new ideals; the abolition of wage slavery and sex slavery; the coming of a freer, better and happier manhood and womanhood.”In 1910 at the Second International, a world wide socialist congress, German Socialist Clara Zetkin https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2015/07/happy-birthday-clara-zetkin-571857.html proclaimed International Women's day to commemorate the US demonstrators ( garment workers who had marched and picketed demanding improved working conditions and a 8 hour day) whose ranks were broken up by the police, and honour working women the world over.
Originally called National Woman’s Day, the monumental annual celebration spread across the world (officially celebrated in 1911), but it was Russia who unknowingly set the March 8 trend and helped spark a revolution. When tens of thousands of women converged in Petrograd, Russia to mark the holiday—as well as demand an end to World War I and protest food shortages—the demonstrations turned into a massive strike. Within hours, 100,000 workers, including men, walked out on their jobs to join the demonstrators.
The movement grew to as many as 150,000 striking workers within a few days. Eventually, even the Russian army joined the marchers, withdrawing their support from the Tsar Nicholas. It was the beginning of the Russian Revolution.
After World War II, the holiday picked up steam, and lost many of its associations with socialism and radical politics. As the women’s liberation movement swept around the world in the 1970s, the United Nations designated 1975 International Women's Year and celebrated the holiday for the first time. Two years later in 1977, designated March 8 International Women’s Day, and, in 1996, began to adopt an annual theme for every year. The first theme was "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future." This year’s theme #EachforEqual is meant to be a shared goal throughout 2020.
"We
can actively choose to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden
perceptions, improve situations, and celebrate women's achievements,"
states the organization's site. "Collectively, each one of us can help create a gender equal world. Let's all be #EachforEqual."
The
IWD 2020 campaign theme draws on the notion of "collective
individualism," which refers to the idea that every individual is a part
of a whole, and that an individual's actions, behaviors, and mindsets
can all have an impact on larger society. IWD is a national holiday
in 27 countries like Russia, Afghanistan, and Laos; in some countries,
like Nepal and China, it’s a national holiday for women only.
IWD is a day to celebrate the social, political and other acheivements of women. A day to recognise the oppression that still flourishes, caused by both capitalism and patriarchy. An unfortunate and undeniable reality for the majority of women today.The fight for womens rights might looks a little different today, but our sisters are still facing discrimination and injustices across the globe.In recent times, issues of women's political influence and economic equality have been joined by broader struggles against, racism, war, violence, environmental destruction, and other forms of oppression for peace and social justice and is now often spread into a whole week of activities.
Time to celebrate the gains women have made and to keep on calling for the changes that are still very much needed. Women are still not equally represented in business or politics, girls facing sexual objectification from an early age, girls told to shrink themselves make themselves smaller. Women still forced to flee domestic abuse, others facing honour killing, a practice that allows family members to murder women for dishonouring their families, by refusing arranged marriages, removing their faith or for simply dressing in ways considered inappropriate. I also note that the basic needs of most Palestinian women are daily being violated by Israels's ongoing occupation and siege. The siege in Gaza a contributing factor in one fifth of maternal deaths in Gaza.
Yet contrary to Orientalist misrepresentation, women have been at the heart of liberation struggles in the Middle East and North Africa. At the moment in the region of Turkey and Kurdistan women are being politicised in a long struggle against theocratic totalitarianism, inspiring us in their fight for emancipation and freedom.
So today as I observe International Womens Day, I stand up for all women still trapped by injustices, still suffering from abuse, at the end of the day I believe the women's struggle is a struggle for the freedom of all people, recuperating the fair value of people over things. I recognise the practice and theory of mutual support that women have laid, that are the foundations of social change that we must keep building. Women who recognised the tactical necessity of standing and working together, lest they be destroyed individually, women who put to shame the ridiculous notion of a 'women's place. Their struggle is ours too. I acknowledge all those who have been persecuted, jailed, tortured, simply for being a woman. Especially those who are among the most vulnerable in this present moment of time - the refugees.
Let us also celebrate the powerful women who've fought dictatorship, risked their lives to fight climate change and led mass movements for justice across the world, we cannot let their contributions go unnoticed today and every day.
Solidarity with the women of Kobane, Mexico, Afganistan, Gaza, women of the world, to my sisters nearer home and to all the comrades who are still fiercely opting to break every chain.
Despite strides made by the international women’s rights movement – and union campaigns for women’s rights – over many years, protests will be staged across the world today against injustice, abuse, discrimination, violence and harassment targeted at women and girls.,calling for gender equality, an end to gender-based violence and occupational segregation,
If you do one thing this international Women's Day, can you please push the following petition that will help drive real change to make our society safer and better for girls and women, everyday of the year.
Change.org/OurStreetsNowIWD
Heddwch/Peace. Solidarity forever
" Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps, the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress, towards equality, development and peace."
- Gen Secretary of the UN - Koffi Annan
oh and as Emma Goldman pointed out :-
" The most violent element in society is ignorance."
Here is a link to the Socialist Roots of International Women's Day
https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-socialist-roots-of-international.html
