Thank Trade Unionists and Socialists for International Women’s Day

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.

                                        Just before World War I German Socialists celebrated International Women's Day in 1914.

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. 

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. 

The Feminist movement of the 1970's revived American interest in International Women's Day although its socialist and labor roots were often obscured.

It faded in this country until it was taken up by a new generation of feminists in ‘60’s, largely shorn of its original working class basis. 

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 2022 is “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, and call for climate action for women, by women.  From the UN Women web page” 

With the latest data, we now understand the vital link between gender, social equity and climate change, and recognize that without gender equality today, a sustainable future, an equal future, remains out of reach.

Women and girls experience the greatest impacts of the climate crisis as it amplifies existing gender inequalities and puts women’s lives and livelihoods at risk. Across the world, women depend more on, yet have less access to, natural resources, and often bear a disproportionate responsibility for securing food, water, and fuel.

As women and girls bear the burden of climate impacts, they are also essential to leading and driving change in climate adaption, mitigation and solutions.  Without the inclusion of half of the world’s population, it is unlikely that solutions for a sustainable planet and a gender equal world tomorrow will be realized. 

However, the official International Women’s Day web site, while recognizing he United Nations designation, is promoting an alternative theme—#Break the Bias:

Imagine a gender equal world.

 

A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

 

A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

 

A world where difference is valued and celebrated.

 

Together we can forge women's equality.

 

Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.

 

Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions—all day, every day.

 

We can break the bias in our communities.

 

We can break the bias in our workplaces.

 

We can break the bias in our schools, colleges and universities.

 

Together, we can all break the bias—on International Women’s Day (IWD) and beyond.

The encourage women, men, and genderfluid individuals to participate in the movement by using the x-crossed arms pose and “share your #BreakTheBias image, video, resources, presentation or articles on social media using #IWD2022 #BreakTheBias to encourage further people to commit to helping forge an inclusive world.”

The Old Man is in!

Today, International Women’s Day is observed as 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 have been met by police attacks and the jailing of many leading women militants. 

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, even when it was—or especially because it was—smiled upon and acknowledged by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Women of the Ukraine show  the world strength. 

This year the leading role of women in ecological movements, demands for action on climate change, and climate justice are widely acknowledged.  And the perfidious invasion of Ukraine ordered by Vladimir Putin has highlighted the amazing strength of women in the defense of their homes, families, nations, and equality.

 

The Labor and Socialist Roots of International Women’s Day Run Deep

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.

Just before World War I German Socialists celebrated International Women's Day in 1914.

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. 

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. 

Union members, Socialist, Communists and female labor organizations led early American observances while middle class suffrage movements shied away.

It faded in this country until it was taken up by a new generation of feminists in ‘60’s, largely shorn of its original working class basis. 

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 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge.  The International Women’s Day web site describes the theme this way:

A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we’re all responsible for our own thoughts and actions—all day, every day.

We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.

From challenge comes change, so let's all choose to challenge.

Today, it is observed as 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 have been met by police attacks and the jailing of many leading women militants. 

Second wave American feminists resurrected interest in International Women's Day in the late '60's and celebrated when became a United Nations sponsored event in 1975.

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, even when it was—or especially because it was—smiled upon and acknowledged by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

This year President Joe Biden is set to mark International Women’s Day by signing two executive orders creating a Gender Policy Council and reviewing Trump-era changes to Title IX, the Federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education. 

In the Year of Triumph and Reactionary Backlash International Women’s Day Calls for #BallenceforBetter

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. 

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.  

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.  

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.  

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.

A Damn Pushy Woman and The Book that Changed America

The 1963 first edition of The Femine Mystique.

On February 19, 1963 W.W. Norton and Company issued Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique.   That book, along with the nearly contemporaneous arrival of the Pill as a reliable and affordable form of contraception, ushered in the social and political movement sometimes called the Second Wave of Feminism.

With astonishing speed—less than a decade—that movement would embrace and personally empower millions of women with local level consciousness raising groups, sophisticated national organizations, political operations, and a network of publications.  Long held assumptions about home, family, work, and other issues would be turned on their heads.  It was in a real sense a revolution.

More than 50 years later the spasmodic eruption of the extreme right wing in this country, empowered by the election of Republicans to national and state level legislative power,  has turned its attention to undoing that revolution.  That is what the current uproar over contraception and abortion is really all about—attacking the gains women felt so confident it that they thought they could never be challenged again.  About 25% of the American population wants to turn back the clock to what they imagine was a safer world where everyone knew their place and “morals” ruled.  They want to recreate the very environment that Friedan rebelled against.

Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein in 1921 to a Jewish family in overwhelmingly Goyish Peoria, Illinois.  Her father owned a local jewelry store and her mother wrote society news for the local newspaper—until she was forced to give up her career after marriage, something she urged her daughter never to do.

Growing up in the Depression years, she became inflamed with a passion for social justice.  She also acutely felt the sting of common anti-Semitism.  She developed an interest in Marxism while still in high school, which may have been why, despite being a regular contributor to the school paper, she was turned down for a spot as a columnist. 

In 1938 her family found enough money to send her to prestigious Smith College, one of the Seven Sister Schools to the then all male Ivy League.  Excelling academically, she won a scholarship to continue her education, pursuing a degree in psychology.  She also continued writing, including placing several poems in the campus literary magazine and rising to editor of the newspaper in 1941.  Under her leadership, the paper took a sharply political and leftist tone.

After graduating with honors in 1942, she went to the University of California at Berkley on a Fellowship.  She plunged into radical political activity there as well.  But in 1943 she abandoned her academic aspirations at the urging of her then boyfriend.

After leaving school she went to work as a journalist for left wing and labor outlets, first  The Federated Press and then beginning in  1945,  the United Electrical Workers UE News.

While working at the UE News, she married advertising executive Carl Friedan in 1947.  As she continued her career the couple would have three children and move to a comfortable suburban life.  Ironically, here union employers forced her out in 1953 after the birth of her second daughter. 

Friedan then turned to freelance writing, often contributing to main stream women’s magazines like Cosmopolitan.

In 1957 Friedan was asked to write an article on what happened to members of her graduating class for their 15th reunion.  She sent questionnaires to as many as she could find and received over two hundred replies.  Most of her classmates, it turned out, had abandoned careers to raise families.  And they were miserable and unfulfilled.  Intrigued by what she called problem that has no name, she embarked on further research and study.

When the women’s magazines to which she regularly contributed all rejected an article on the subject, Friedan was furious and went to work expanding the article into a book.  

Friedan speaking at an early promotional appearance for her book.

Among other things, she came to the conclusion that popular women’s magazines and cultural in general had abandoned independence as a goal for women and pushed the ideal of finding fulfillment in marriage and family life.  When the nuclear family could not fulfill women and when they lost their identity and sense of self, women became conflicted, guilt ridden, and neurotic.

Friedan advocated for women to pursue careers either in lieu of marriage and traditional family life or within a re-defined marriage of equals.  She outlined the cultural, political, and economic barriers to fulfillment and advocated action to tear them down.

The result was The Feminine Mystique.  It created an immediate sensation, zoomed to the top of the non-fiction best seller list and stayed there for months.  Its notoriety was stoked by the shocked and horrified response of many, mostly male, reviewers and the press in general. 

But women, especially middle class women, responded urgently to the books message.  They began meeting in living rooms, libraries, church basements, and coffee shops in small groups to compare their own experiences creating a boom in consciousness raising groups that gave women the support of their sisters and empowered them to act.

As a founder and first President of NOW, Friedan gave feminism new organizational power.

A sudden celebrity, Friedan found herself anointed de facto the leader of a new movement.  In 1966 she helped make that status official by being among the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which quickly gave political muscle to the new movement.  She was elected NOW’s first President and launched their first major initiative—a push to revive the moribund Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and get it ratified by the States.

She served NOW as President until 1970 and then went on to lead the national Women’s Strike for Equality, and led a march of 50,000 women in New York City.  The next year she teamed with her sometimes bitter rival for leadership of the movement, Gloria Steinem, to found the National Women’s Political Caucus.

Friedan was also a founder of the organization that became the National Abortion Rights Action League.  Despite this she later regretted the emphasis on abortion and sexual rights, believing that the core of the women’s struggle was economic opportunity.  She was also uncomfortable with the rising visibility and importance of lesbians in the movement, although over time her notorious iciness to them softened and became more accepting.

Friedan was not without critics—and not all of them were enemies of the women’s movement.  She was abrasive, often angry, and hard to work with for associates.  She demanded deference to her position as an indispensible founder.  Beyond personality, some critics of her landmark first book took her to task for writing only for highly educated women in the solid middle class.  Indeed they were the focus of The Feminine Mystique and the backbone of the early movement.  Non-whites and working class women—women who had always worked to support their families and had jobs instead of careers—were at best the subject of benign neglect.

Friedan, originally a socialist and labor person, seemed to have forgotten some of her own experiences.  But she firmly believed that the ERA and reforms like insuring equal pay would raise all boats and elevate the status of pink collar workers along with educated professionals.

Friedan as an honored, but controversial, Women's Movement elder.

But the seeming disdain of the early movement for working class women, and the perceived antagonism to women who chose a traditional family role, quickly became the nucleus around which the rising right wing movement of the late 20st and early 21st Century spun its fantasy of snobbish elites turning class resentments against feminists and other progressives. 

Friedan continued writing, speaking and organizing almost to the moment of her death.  She never mellowed. She died on her 85th birthday, February 4, 2006.  She left behind three children—and the Women’s Movement.