Today is International Women’s Day. Rooted in the international push for women’s suffrage and in the labor/socialist movements, the first celebration was held in 1911 on March 19, a date selected to commemorate the 1848 uprisings when the King of Prussia was compelled to acknowledge the power of the people.
The occasion and date were suggested by Clara Zetkin of the German Social Democratic Party at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910. Delegates from 17 countries representing trade unions, socialist parties, and working women’s clubs unanimously approved the call. News of the event, spread by the socialist press and word of mouth helped make the first observance successful in much of Europe with packed meetings, parades, and at least one tense standoff with police.
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| English Socialists celebrate an early International Women's Day. |
In 1913, International Women’s Day was moved to its present date of March 8. Despite the eruption of the First World War, which damaged many international relationships, Women’s Day grew year by year.
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| American labor, especially the needle trades, and the Socialist Party brought International Women's Day to the U.S. after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York. |
In the wake of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, American unions, the Socialist Party, and later the Communist Party spread the celebration through the next two decades, but because of its radical association, the Suffrage movement and middle class women’s organizations shunned it.
It faded in this country until it was taken up by new generation of feminists in ‘60’s, largely shorn of its original working class basis.
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| Second wave American feminists resurected interest in International Women's Day in the late '60's and celebrated when became a United Nations sponsored event in 1975. |
In 1975 the United Nations officially began promoting and sponsoring International Women’s Day. Each year the U.N. designates a theme for the celebration, although individual countries and groups are allowed, even encouraged, to develop their own themes based on their own experiences and challenges.
The theme for 2019 is Better for Balance. The IWD web site explains.
The future is exciting. Let’s build a gender-balanced world.
Everyone has a part to play—all the time, everywhere.
From grassroots activism to worldwide action, we are entering an exciting period of history where the world expects balance. We notice its absence and celebrate its presence.
Balance drives a better working world. Let’s all help create a #BalanceforBetter. The campaign theme provides a unified direction to guide and galvanize continuous collective action, with #BalanceforBetter activity reinforced and amplified all year…
Balance is not a women's issue, it’s a business issue. The race is on for the gender-balanced boardroom, a gender-balanced government, gender-balanced media coverage, a gender-balance of employees, more gender-balance in wealth, gender-balanced sports coverage ...
Gender balance is essential for economies and communities to thrive. Collective action and shared responsibility for driving a gender-balanced world is key. International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women—while also marking a call to action for accelerating gender balance.
Today, Women’s Day is a national holiday in many nations, although disguised as a version of Mothers’ Day in some conservative societies. Among the hold outs in designating an official status are many Islamic nations like Iran where attempts to mark the Day with public demonstrations in 2005 were met by police attacks and the jailing of many leading women militants.
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| I prefer this image of strong women taking action to the official theme representations which show women and some men holding their hands spread wide and palms up, sueposedly to represent ballance--a reasonable and unthreatening concept. But it is a passive pose and actually can resemble a resigned shrug. Sponsors urge people to take photos of themelves in the pose and post them on social media in solidarity. But most of the images on the IWD web site feature attractive, upwardly moble young people with hardly a Third World, working class, or older person represented. |
And, of course, in the United States a deep fear and resentment by conservatives of any International celebration, particularly one with Socialist roots and promoted by the United Nations, prevents any official participation. Do not hold your breath for an official White House proclamation. At best there may be an incoherent but hostile 3 am toilet Tweet.
Luckily, that will not prevent activities around the country as the women’s movement broadens and embraces the radical roots of international feminism.
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