Correction: Though the observations below were correct at the time of writing, they have now been rendered somewhat moot as Jezebel acknowledged International Women’s Day in an article posted at 12:35 P.M. My apologies.
In what must have surely been a lack of judgment borne of caffeine deficiency, I checked Jezebel for the first time in months this morning to see if they’d have a post about the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, seeing as how they are supposedly a feminist blog. The sound of crickets was as palpable as it was predictable, though they did have some lovely posts about Lily Allen’s eating disorder and how sharing photos on Facebook affects your self-image.
But I’m not here to compare Western feminism to the late Roman Empire or lament its decadent decline into a trendy and degenerate blogosphere variety that is devoid of any sense of history or intellectual underpinnings and relies mainly on shallow sarcasm and a fixation on policing the most vapid aspects of our culture as an attempt to justify and intellectualize one’s interest in them. Because today is not about that. Today is about the achievements of women worldwide, and the serious struggles many of them still face.
To say it’s ironic that many in the United States have never heard of this holiday would be an understatement. For although the first official celebration of International Working Women’s Day took place in 1911 across several German-speaking nations, its origins lie in the National Women’s Day organized and celebrated by the Socialist Party of America in 1909. Rosalind Rosenberg, a history professor at Barnard College traces it back even earlier, to a protest held on March 8, 1908 by 15,000 female garment workers in New York City’s Lower East Side. It was in 1910, at an international women’s conference in Copenhagen, that the day acquired its international character.
As the holiday gained recognition and popularity across Eastern Europe, particularly in the newly established USSR, it quickly lost ground in the United States, first with the unpopularity of the Socialist Party’s opposition to US participation in World War I, and later when the Red Scare made the word “Socialism” into anathema. But even in the Soviet Union, where I grew up, the socialist character of “8 Marta” was never in the forefront – at least no more than it was in any of our other holidays. Rather, we mainly celebrated it as an all-around “Women’s Day” – Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day rolled into one. But we also remembered the unimaginable sacrifices and hardships our mothers and grandmothers had endured during World War II and their invaluable contributions to our victory.
International Women’s Day was not formally recognized in the United States until it was established by the UN in the 1970’s, and even since then, it has barely registered on the radar. However, on the eve of today’s centennial celebration, President Obama not only called on Americans to observe the day, but proclaimed the entire month of March to be Women’s History Month. On the same day, Secretary of State Clinton launched the “100 Women Initiative”, gathering 100 women from 92 countries for a three-week professional exchange program in the US.
It is as important today as on any other day to take note of the injustices that still keep one-half of the world’s population in a subordinate state. But in light of recent events in Wisconsin and Ohio, I think it is also particularly relevant to remember this holiday’s origins as International Working Women’s Day, and to stand against the obstacles that workers – especially female workers – face in their struggles for a more just and equal society.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go call my mom, and then my grandma.
