On March 8, International Women’s Day, around the world women organize
rallies, marches and gatherings of all kinds to assert their claim as
women to a say and control over all the affairs of society. Their
struggle to affirm their collective rights is part and parcel of the
fight to defend the rights of all.Today I celebrate International Women's Day with the recognition
that it's not simply one day a year, but it is every day that women take the
lead in protecting our communities, and our rights.
I also do not forget the radical history of the day itself. Ever since women fought for the right to vote in the late 19th and early
20th centuries, the essence of their fight has been political. They
have put forward their claims on society as a matter of right, facing
all kinds of state-inspired discrimination and violence against them and
state-sanctioned attempts to relegate them to second, third and fourth
grade citizenship based on brutal identity politics and exploitation.
Women, however, speak in their own name and refuse to accept any
limitations on their right to decide all matters which affect their
lives. Their courage and determination in the front ranks of the
struggle for a society which recognizes everyone as equal members of the
body politic with equal rights and duties inspires everyone to also
fight for the rights of all.
In 1909 the Socialist Party of America organized a New York City
march commemorating a garment workers’ strike the previous year when hundreds of women workers in the New York needle trades demonstrated in
Rutgers Square in Manhattan’s Lower East Side to form their own union
and to demand the right to vote. This historic demonstration took place
on March 8th. It led, in the following year to the ‘uprising’
of 30,000 women shirtwaist makers which resulted in the first permanent
trade unions for women workers in the USA. The famous slogan bread and roses made its debut at this protest . The Socialist Party of America declared National Woman's Day, to be celebrated on February calling for better pay and working conditions as well as the right to vote.
It was at the second annual meeting of the International Conference of
Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, that Clara Zetkin, a prominent Marxist
activist from Germany’s Social Democratic Party, proposed the following motion at the Copenhagen
Conference of the Second International: “The Socialist women of all
countries will hold each year a Women’s Day, whose foremost purpose it
must be to aid the attainment of women’s suffrage. This demand must be
handled in conjunction with the entire women’s question according to
Socialist precepts. The Women’s Day must have an international character
and is to be prepared carefully.” The conference agreed.
During the First World War, she along with Karl Liebnecht, Rosa
Luxemburg, and other International SPD politicians, had rejected the party's
policy of Burgfrieden , which was a call to refrain from strikes during
the war. Among other anti-war activities she also
organised an international socialist womens anti-war conference in
Berlin, 1915. She however was not just an organiser, but also a great
writer and thinker. That still remains an inspiration today.
Because
of her anti-war opinions, she was arrested several times, during the
war and in 1916 was taken into 'protective custody'.She
also held the view that still holds much resonance today, that the
source of women's oppression was in capitalism, and that any form of
liberation, could only be served with the self-emancipation of the
working class.
IWD, consequently, was celebrated for the first time in Austria,
Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911. Women in these
countries demanded the right to vote, to hold public office and the
right to work. Russian women began celebrating IWD in 1913, and on IWD 1914, across Europe there were marches against the impeding imperialist war and for a women's right to vote.
In 1917 in Russia, International Women’s Day acquired great significance
, it was the flashpoint for the Russian Revolution. On March 8th
women workers in Petrograd held a mass strike and
demonstration demanding Peace and Bread in protest at the deaths of more
than 2 million Russian soldiers in the war. The strike movement spread
from
factory to factory and effectively became an insurrection. After the Russian Revolution, in 1922, in
honour of the women’s role in 1917, Lenin declared that March 8th should be designated officially as women’s day in the Soviet Union.
From there, it was primarily celebrated in
communist countries such as China. But on the heels of the U.S civil
rights movement in the 1960s, as women fought sex discrimination in the
1960s
and ’70s, the United Nations declared 1975 as International Women’s
Year. In 1977 the U.N. officially marked IWD by inviting member
countries to celebrate women’s rights and world peace on March 8. It has since been celebrated in more than 100 countries, and has been made an official holiday in more than 25. Ever since, International Women’s Day celebrations have been held on
March 8 in countries across the globe — serving as an annual reminder of
the revolutionary potential of working women. Over the years though, these celebrations have drifted far away from the day's political roots.
Is a sad fact that for many women in the present day, little if anything has improved, since all those years ago when women initially marched. Many women are still not paid equally to that of their male
counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business
or politics, and globally women's education, health and the violence
against them is worse than that of men. This day then is also an appropriate occasion to remember the too many gaps
hindering, sometimes in a brutal and cruel manner, the process towards
the full recognition and protection of women’s rights as universal
human rights. In times of war, women as well as children are those that have to bear
the major brunt of the abuses and human rights violations committed, in conflict zones across the globe.Wars and
famine also means that tens of millions of women are on the move and homeless
as refugees. Across the world, they suffer sexual exploitation, rape,
violence and murder from people they know as well from strangers.Many ordinary women still struggling to put food on the table.
We must continue to stand in unity and solidarity on March the 8th
with all all those internationally who are still fighting sexism and the
inequality, exploitation and hardship that is still rife under the combination of capitalism and patriarchy and keep celebrating the social, political and other achievements of women, who continue to try and promote gender equality and political justice, who still try to make this world of ours a better place for everyone.
( This post dedicated to all my sisters whose every day is steeped in struggle )
