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March 8, 2001 is the ninty-first anniversary of
International Women’s Day (IWD), which was first declared in 1910.
In 1910, Clara Zetkin, inspired by the women’s
movement in America, proposed to the Second International Conference of the
Socialist Working Women, that an annual celebration of women’s day be held. The
Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, established a Women’s
Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women’s rights and
to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted
with unanimous approval by the Conference of over 100 women from 17 countries.
No fixed date was selected for the observance.
Clara Zetkin
As a result of this decision, the first
International Women’s Day was held on March 19, 1911 in Austria, Denmark,
Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended
rallies. In addition to the right to vote, they demanded the right to work, to
vocational training and an end to discrimination on the job. The date was chosen
by German women as March 19, because, on that date in 1848, the Prussian king,
faced with an armed uprising, had promised many reforms, including an
unfulfilled one of votes for women.
In 1913, the date for the IWD was changed to March
8th. This was to commemorate two important events which occurred on that day. On
March 8, 1857, women garment and textile workers in New York City staged, for
the first time, a protest against inhuman working conditions, the 12-hour work
day and low wages. The marchers were attacked and dispersed by the police. Two
years later, again in March, these women formed their first union.
Again on March 8, 1908, 15,000 women marched
through New York city demanding shorter hours, better pay, voting rights and an
end to child labour. They adopted the slogan "Bread and Roses"; with
bread symbolising economic security and roses, a better quality of life. In May
of that year, the Socialist Party of America designated the last Sunday in
February for the observance of National Women’s Day.
A Women's
Procession in the early years of 20th Century
The first National Women’s Day was observed across
the USA on February 28, 1909. Soon, women in Europe began celebrating Women’s
Day on the last Sunday of February. It was in this background that Clara Zetkin
put forward the proposal for an International Women’s Day at the 1910 Conference
of the Women’s Socialist International.
Within a week of the first celebrations in 1911, on
March 25 1911, over 140 working girls were killed in the Tragic Triangle Fire in
the USA. This event had a far-reaching effect on labour legislation in the USA
and gave the IWD a further impetus.
On the eve of World War I, Russian women observed
their first International Women’s Day in 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around
March 8 of the following year, women held rallies either to protest against the
war or to express solidarity with oppressed women.
The most famous International Working Women’s Day
was the March 8, 1917 (February 24 in the Russian-style calendar) strike for
"bread and peace" led by Russian women of St. Petersburg. Both Clara Zetkin
and Alexandra Kollontai took part in this event. The IWD strike merged with the
riots that had spread throughout the city between March 8-12. The February
Revolution, as it came to be known, forced the Czar to abdicate.
In the Soviet Union, March 8 was declared a
national holiday and there they celebrated "the heroic woman worker".
Since then, March 8 has grown in significance, and its celebrations throughout
the world marked a growing awareness of women’s rights. The great advances
achieved in women’s rights in the Soviet Union after the socialist revolution
was an inspiration to women throughout the world. The Chinese revolution in 1949
showed how, even in one of the most backward countries of the world, seeped in
feudal values and patriarchal thinking, women can be aroused for change. The
gigantic strides made by women in socialist China, was a living example for
women throughout the third world. Particularly, the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution and its consistent attack on feudal Confucian thinking, acted as a
great source for the further emancipation of women in China. Com. Chiang Ching
was its living symbol.
Chiang Ching
The 1960s and early 70s, which saw a strong
democratic upsurge in the capitalist countries and powerful national liberation
movements in the third world countries, witnessed a rejuvenation of the women’s
liberation movement. The movement had such enormous impact throughout the world
that the imperialists sought to destroy it through cooption and diversion into
acceptable channels. This resulted in highly funded NGOs vehemently attacking
socialism, and putting forward a bourgeois form of feminism. The process of
cooption culminated in the United Nations officially recognising March 8 as IWD
in 1977. Since then, the most bourgeois and reactionary organisations also
‘celebrate’ March 8, depriving it of its revolutionary content and great history
of struggle, through which it originated. This process was further catalysed
with the reversal of socialism, first in the Soviet Union, and later in China.
The first casualty of these reversals, was the denial of some of the rights
achieved by women under socialism.
Yet, International Women’s Day continues to live on
amongst the oppressed women of the world. The temporary setback of the communist
movement and socialism, and the re-assertion of capitalism/imperialism, has hit
women hard. Globalisation, and the crass consumerism associated with it, has
witnessed the mass commodification of women, on a scale unheard of before. The
cosmetic industry, tourism and bourgeois media has degraded the woman’s body as
never before, without any respect for their individuality. This, coupled with
mass poverty, has led to entire populations turning to prostitution as witnessed
in East Europe, East Asia, Nepal, etc. Coupled with this, the rise of religious
fundamentalism and various sects throughout the world, is pushing another
section of women back to a status of the Dark Ages. Squeezed between these two
extremes, women today, more than ever before, feel the need for assertion, for
self-respect and equality with their male counterparts. March 8, has therefore
an even greater significance today.
The revisionists and bourgeois liberals seek to
dampen women’s spirit of freedom, displaying mock ‘concern’, acting as
condescending saviours, confining women to their home. They compromise with
patriarchal values, feudal traditions and fear women’s emancipation and
assertion. They, of course, also ‘celebrate’ women’s day, as a routine, issuing
out the regular hypocritical statements.
It is the revolutionary forces throughout the
world, and more particularly the Maoists, who have brought back a living
vibrance to IWD, making it, once again, a day symbolising the struggle of women
for freedom, self-respect, equality and emancipation from all patriarchal values
and exploitative practices. It is this revolutionary spirit that kindles a new
hope in the future for the oppressed women of India, and the world.
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