Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: International Women's Day

As I am writing this it is International Women's Day 2020, and across the world marches are taking place to highlight gender inequality which still exists worldwide. However, the radical origins of International Women's Day has largely been overlooked as it has been co-opted by wider society - similar protest movements and celebrations, such as the Notting Hill Carnival and Gay Pride have seen similar co-optation. Today we will look at the history of International Women's Day, and how it came about.

Origins

Theresa Malkiel

International Women's Day (IWD) had its origins firmly with the socialist labour movement. Ukrainian-born activist Theresa Malkiel, of the American Socialist Party, first advocated for a National Women's Day in the early-1900s, seeing it as a way to draw attention to the twin oppressions that women faced: through class exploitation and sexism. Even among the socialist movement, there was sexism, so women like Malkiel often had to challenge misogyny in the labour movement, as well as misogyny in society as a whole. However, despite sexism in the labour movement, they were more receptive to women's issues, and the American Left had influential women within the movement - especially with figures like Emma Goldman and Lucy Parsons. Malkiel had long been an advocate for a separate socialist women's group with the intention of bringing women into the labour movement, and to also fight for women's rights seeing the mainstream feminist organisations as only benefiting middle and upper-class women. In 1909 she managed to organise the first National Women's Day, just a year after she helped found the Women's National Committee, in solidarity with the various women's strikes and marches for suffrage and equality.

Alexandra Kollontai

Inspired by Malkiel's Women's March European socialists also wanted to create a women's movement. The European Left, especially in Germany, had a strong feminist current - in 1889 Clara Zetkin had written a pamphlet called Women-Worker and Feminist Issues of Our Time which called for women to receive wage labour, as it would make women independent from men, and would force men to treat women as equals. A women's section of the Second International, which aimed to unite the principally Marxist left-wing movements, met in Copenhagen in 1910, and with 100 delegates there was a unanimous decision to declare an International Women's Day. Among those who attended included the well-known Clara Zetkin, and Alexandra Kollontai, one of the major Russian socialist feminists who is also seen as inspiring the rise of the feminist movement in Scandinavia. Quoting Zetking,

In agreement with the class-conscious, political and trade union organizations of the proletariat of their respective countries, 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.

Kollontai would stress that the aims of an IWD would be to attain suffrage for women, and social security, like maternity leave, so that women could be more independent than men. Originally, it was held on 19 March, not 8 March, to coincide with German history and the current fight for suffrage. As Kollontai said:

This date was not chosen at random. Our German comrades picked the day because of its historic importance for the German proletariat. On the 19th of March in the year of 1848 revolution, the Prussian king recognized for the first time the strength of the armed people and gave way before the threat of a proletarian uprising. Among the many promise he made, which he later failed to keep, was the introduction of votes for women.

The first IWD was held the following year, 1911, and marches were held across Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and the Austro-Hungarian empire. In Austria-Hungary there were 300 protests, and in Vienna women carried banners honoring the Paris Commune of 1871, often seen as one of the first steps in creating a modern socialist system. In 1914, on March 8, in Germany and Britain women marched for the right to vote - famous radical suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst was even arrested - and since then it has been universally celebrated on March 8.

The Soviet Union and IWD

Until the coming of the Russian Revolution the Russian Empire still used the Julian Calendar so March 8 landed on 23 February instead. Russia suffered immensely during the First World War, and losses to Germany meant that food became scarcer and more rights were infringed. So, on March 8/February 23, women textile workers in the capital of Petrograd, modern St. Petersburg, went on strike demanding 'Bread and Peace'. Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky later remembered that no-one imagined that it would be IWD which ended up toppling the Russian Empire. Striking men, including from the army, joined the women, began forming Workers' Council (Soviets), and forced the tsar to abdicate issuing in the Provisional Russian Republic. This weak and unpopular state, however, was later overthrown in October/November by Lenin's Bolsheviks issuing in what would become the Soviet Union. Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw their role as ending the 'humiliating resignation to the perpetual and atmosphere of the kitchen and nursery' which women were forced to endure, and Alexandra Kollontai was brought into the government to end gender inequality. Kollontai's influence would mean that the IWD would become an official holiday in the Soviet Union, however, it took until 1965 for it to become a non-working day. Thanks to the Russian Civil War, and reversal of gender equality under Stalin followed by the legacies of Stalinisation of the Soviet Union, it took so long to become a non-working holiday. Even then, it had to be framed as a 'reward' for participating in 'the Great Patriotic War' (the Second World War). Thanks to the Soviet Union, socialist movements would strive to make IWD celebrated worldwide.

IWD on a Global Scale

Female members of the Australian Builders Labourers Federation march on International Women's Day 1975 in Sydney

Quickly Left-wing movements globally began formally and informally campaigning for IWD, and for it to bring together demands for women's rights. China, in particular, saw the Left celebrate IWD with the communists first celebrating it in 1922. A staggering 25,000 people, mainly women, marched in the city of Guangzhou in 1927 to bring awareness of women's rights. Following the declaration of the People's Republic of China in 1949 it was declared that March 8 would be a half-day off for women - something which happens despite the gradual reversal of Maoist era policies by the new state capitalist politicians. Similarly, IWD was declared a holiday in several states which claimed to be socialist or Left-wing worldwide, ranging from Dolores Iburruri in 1936 organising one in Madrid just before to Civil War, to Cuba, to Angola. With the rise of second-wave feminism in the 1960s IWD started coming more into the mainstream as feminists highlighted pay inequality, reproductive rights, anti-sexism, and equality in the domestic sphere on March 8. Finally, just as the socialists of 1910 wanted, women were using IWD on a wide and global scale to assert their rights. Due to the direct action of second-wave feminism it allowed IWD to go beyond the socialist left, and started being picked up by a wide range of feminists. Thanks to the actions of feminists, this got the UN to declare 1975 the 'International Women's Year', and since 1977 have asked member states to make March 8 a day to recognise women. Thanks to the second-wave feminists, even in states where it is not a recognised holiday, people in their thousands still march to show the continued inequality in society.

Recent changes in IWD

A return to activism in Spain, 2019

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of IWD becoming a widespread event was the co-optation of IWD by those oppressing women. In Russia IWD has become sidelined and is now used to show stereotypical female beauty, a far-cry from the egalitarian aims for women empowerment which Kollontai imagined; China still uses it as a national holiday for women, despite it trying to reverse women's access to abortions and justice following sexual abuse; and in many countries, big businesses often attach themselves to IWD, despite paying women less than men (especially if they are disabled or non-white), cover up sexual abuse, and generally exploit women. Similarly, especially in Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, IWD has been attempted to be turned into a day for a specific type of feminism - one that excludes non-white women, sex workers, poor women, and openly calls for discrimination against trans women. However, there are many cases where there is a pushback against this. In 2007 women activists in Tehran used IWD as a way to protest the incredible inequality which they face, and went on hunger strike for fifteen days after their arrest for 'inciting violence'. Iranian women like Shadi Sadr highlights how women were bringing IWD back to its radical roots. In the last few years IWD has become increasingly radical as, despite years of a fictitious equality, sexism and misogyny was still prevalent in society. For example, the Edinburgh IWD has specifically declared its IWD march to be pro-trans rights and anti-capitalist, and the international aspect is firmly present in 2020's IWD. During the November protests in Chile against social inequality a feminist theatre group, Lastesis, released the song and dance Un Violador en tu Camino - 'A Rapist in your path' - highlighting the institutional structures which allowed sexual abuse to go unpunished. This has been adopted worldwide, and is challenging the commodification of IWD. Inequality and oppression will always be met with resistance, no matter how many times people try to commodify it, and IWD stands to show this is the case.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you found it interesting. For other Left-Wing and the 'Other' posts we have a list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: I am Your Sister

Audrey Lorde's short manifesto I am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities (1985) has been seen as one of the keynote texts of black feminist thought. Lorde, bell hooks, and Angela Davis have been seen as the trifecta of black feminist thought. Lorde regularly critiqued the intersection between class, race, gender, and sexuality, and aimed to criticise various movements for homogenising experiences. In particular, she criticised the feminist movement for largely focusing on the oppression that straight, white women (often middle-class) faced, and not the oppression of racial or sexual minorities. One of her most influential texts on this was I am Your Sister, which we shall look at today. Before we begin, it is very short and you can read it here.

Audrey Lorde - A Brief Biography

Lorde was born to Caribbean parents in Harlem in 1934, and faced oppression on all sides. Her parents companies were failing thanks to the Great Depression, so she faced coldness from her parents; she was black living in New York; and she was so nearsighted that she was almost considered legally blind. She would also face a specific form of prejudice often overlooked called colourism. Due to white and imperialist beauty standards people of colour with darker skin have often seen further prejudice compared to people of colour with lighter skin - even among their own communities. Lorde's mother had Spanish heritage so had lighter skin, and this affected how she raised her daughters, who all had darker skin. According to Lorde, her mother distrusted African-Americans with darker skin, and raised her daughters, consequently, by strict 'tough love'. Through all of this she had trouble communicating, but she found an outlet through poetry - something which would influence a name change. In Zami: A New Spelling of My Name she explains that is poetry which influenced her to change her name from 'Audrey' to 'Audre' due to the artistic symmetry of having names ending with the same letter. Aged 12 she felt that she was an outcast so wrote poetry to cope with it - she would later realise that she was a lesbian. She engaged with Harlem's poetry scene during her teenage years, but she was often treated as an inferior because she was 'crazy and queer' that she 'would grow out of'. However, when she started attending the National University of Mexico in 1954 she became freed. She managed to engage in LGBTQ+ and black culture, and realised that it was okay to be 'crazy and queer'. In particular, she became immersed in the LGBTQ+ culture at Greenwich Village in New York, the area which would later see the Stonewall Riot.

From entering university until she passed Lorde wrote poetry and literature, and with feminist, LGBTQ+, and black activism. She and author Alice Walker, famous for The Color Purple, helped develop the idea of 'womanism' - they viewed feminism as being too dominated by white, middle-class women which neglected the experiences of other women. Meanwhile, she also criticised the black rights movement for being dominated by men who would use homophobia to silence black women's complaints of misogyny. She would become part of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press to help link women's communication in 1977; tried to form a black studies department at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice; in 1981 helped found the Women's Coalition of St. Croix to help women suffering from sexual abuse; and helped found the Sisterhood in Support of Sisters which aimed to help black South African women suffering under Apartheid. In 1984 she began teaching in West Berlin where some of her best known activism occurred - it was even subject to a 2012 documentary by Dagmar Schultz. Germany's Afro-German population has often been forgotten and have always faced prejudice - many, named the 'Rhineland Bastards' were sterilised during the Holocaust. Lorde helped Afro-German women articulate their intersectional oppression, and use language to challenge this oppression. During her political activism she continued writing throughout releasing some of her best known poems, writings on LGBTQ+ identity, and even discussed with Afro-Cuban poets if the revolution had changed racism and homophobia in Cuban society. She was also interested in aiding gay and women's rights in the so-called Third World. She vocally opposed the homogenising and 'othering' of  women in the global south, and, inspired by internationalism, hoped to create international understanding. At the 1983 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom she said:

Today we march,” she said, “lesbians and gay men and our children, standing in our own names together with all our struggling sisters and brothers here and around the world, in the Middle East, in Central America, in the Caribbean and South Africa, sharing our commitment to work for a joint livable future. We know we do not have to become copies of each other in order to be able to work together. We know that when we join hands across the table of our difference, our diversity gives us great power. When we can arm ourselves with the strength and vision from all of our diverse communities, then we will in truth all be free at last.

Tragically, Lorde would be diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978, and would later be diagnosed with liver cancer in 1984. Despite this she persisted on - one of her greatest works The Cancer Journals (1981) won the Gay Caucus Book of the Year. She managed to become New York's poet laureate in 1991 before tragically passing the next year. On her death she took a naming ceremony from Nigeria, where she met her partner Dr. Gloria Joseph, adopting the name Gamba Adisa meaning 'Warrior: She Who Makes her Name Known'.

I Am Your Sister

Lorde wrote I Am Your Sister in 1985 with the intention of challenging homophobia and sexism within both the black rights movement, and the women's rights movement. Civil rights movements had a tendency of focusing on one form of oppression of a minority group - there had always been exceptions to this, as exemplified by the Black Panther Party who combined class liberation with black liberation. Thanks to this, forms of oppression seeped into rights movements - homophobia and sexism are prime examples. It was common for black feminists to be criticised as being lesbians by male activists when they pointed out sexism. Lorde aimed to challenge this. She said that 'Black women are not one great vat of homogenized chocolate milk. We have many different faces, and we do not have to become each other in order to work together...and until you can hear me as a Black Lesbian feminist, our strengths will not be be truly available to each other as black women'. Lorde identifies two key forms of prejudice preventing the acceptance of black, lesbian women: heterosexism (the idea that one form of love is superior to the rest) and homophobia ('A terror surrounding feelings of love for members of the same sex and thereby a hatred of those feelings in others'). She links this to the classic 'I can't be racist, I have non-white friends' - white liberals wore dashikis and even married African-Americans but never questioned the bedrock of society supporting white dominance. For example, band-aids and plasters match paler skins and not darker ones. Lorde states that it is the same with homophobia and heterosexism - straight allies never questioned the bedrock of straight supremacy.

'I have heard it said - usually behind my back - that Black Lesbians are not normal. But what is normal in this deranged society by which we are all trapped? I remember, and so do many of you, when being black was NOT NORMAL'. Reading this it reminds you that the way society is shaped can be changed, as new identities try to fight for rights other earlier movements become a 'norm' used to discredit the newer movements. Lorde describes common arguments against black lesbians - like they are 'destroying the family' and 'destroying the race' - are nothing but fear mongering. For one, she mentions how her own son and daughter disprove this. She argues that when women are accused of being lesbian it should not be something to be ashamed - 'If someone says you're a Russian and you know you're not, you don't collapse into stunned silence...But let anyone, particularly a Black man, accuse a straight Black woman of being a Black Lesbian, and right away that sister becomes immobilized, as if that is the most horrible thing that she could be, and must at all costs be proven false. That is homophobia.' Lorde explains how Black women and Black Lesbians should be proud. She cites her own extensive political activism - ranging from marching with Martin Luther King at Washington to helping students occupy buildings - as not diminishing her identity, 'I was a Black Lesbian' accompanies it.

Lorde ends the text, it's less than ten pages, with a final, assertive statement. Homophobic stereotypes were, and are, the problems of straight communities just as racism was the issue of white people. If equality was to come straight people had to acknowledge their own biases. Lorde concludes referencing a white produced poster from the 1960s which said 'He's not black he's my brother', which she critiqued as implying they were mutually exclusive. So she says 'I am a Black Lesbian, and I am Your Sister'.

Legacy
Lorde's manifesto shows how intersectionality works in practice. Quite often it has been misrepresented and strawmanned, but Lorde shows how intersectionality both works and is needed. Treating communities as independent, mutually exclusive categories, but were deeply connected touching many lives. Her work has gone on to inspire leftists, anti-racists, and feminists continuously, including Kimberle Crenshaw who coined the idea of intersectionality. Her words still remain vitally important today. These ones from her essay The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House:

those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference – those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older – know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.

The sources I have used are as follows:
-Audre Lorde, I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities, (New York: 1985)
-Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, (New York: 1983)
-Rudolph Byrd, I Am Your Sister: Collected and Unpublished Writings of Audre Lorde, (Oxford: 2009)
-Audre Lorde, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, Collective Liberation, [Accessed 05/09/2019]

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For other Left-Wing and Other History posts we have our link here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Comics Explained: La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico

As I am writing it has recently been International Women's Day and in my local area a more radical version of the movement has came into being - one advocating internationalism, trans rights, and anti-fascism. This reminded me of a graphic novel released in 2015, and in our first for Comics Explained it is based on real events. Some of the best comics are ones detailing actual events - March is another good example. La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico follows human rights activist Lucha Castro of El Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (the Center for the Human Rights of Women) in Juarez, Chihuahua. The city of Juarez has been caught in Mexico's War on Drugs as cartels and the police/military both commit human rights abuses, especially against women. La Lucha follows Lucha Castro and other human rights activists in a startling depiction of human rights abuses. The graphic novel, meanwhile, is a bleak one. Covering gendered violence and human rights abuses it is entirely monochrome and the drawings are not overly detailed. It works well in creating the feel of human rights abuses in Chihuahua. It is a bleak time - a happy future may never come around.

Background and Opening

La Lucha was drawn and written by writer and activist Jon Sack, and is edited by Adam Shapiro - the Head of Campaigns at Front Line Defenders. Front Line Defenders is an Irish based human rights organisation which helps fund poorer human rights groups in poorer countries. The Center for the Human Rights of Women (Cedehm) was formed in 2005 as a way to defend women against human rights abuses, and later defending human rights activists. Human rights abuses have largely been overlooked in Mexico - in the opening when crossing the border to El Paso, Texas a US border guard is surprised to learn that abuses are taking place. Since 1993 over 370 confirmed women have been found murdered, where over 137 showed signs of sexual abuse. The intensification of the War on Drugs under Vicente Fox in the early-2000s brought a militarised police to Chihuahua which increased human rights abuses. Cedehm was formed in order to challenge these abuses. Helping victims get justice became the focus of Cedehm. There is a spectre of abuse in the opening - while Sack and Shapiro was in Juarez saw the military patrol the streets following the shooting of two people, including a police chief. It highlights that a park is known as Praderas de Irak, the 'Prairies of Iraq', as one activist states 'Well, we're also in a war'.

Marisela
La Lucha does not focus solely on Lucha Castro - we get to see the stories of other human rights activists. The most striking one is the story of Marisela Escobedo - Lucha acted as her lawyer. Interviewing her son in El Paso, Juan Frayre Escobedo, he tells us the story of how his sister, Rubi, was murdered by her boyfriend Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra in 2008. Rubi and Sergio vanished, and despite disinterest by the authorities, Marisela managed to track Serio to Fresnillo where he was arrested and revealed that he had murdered Rubi. They only found a third of her body. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he had shown them where Rubi's body was, the court absolved Sergio in 2010 for his connection to the powerful cartel Los Zetas. Enraged Marisela acted. Starting a grassroots movement the judges were suspended and a retrial found Sergio guilty in absentia but he had vanished. Marisela changed her tactic to try and find Sergio, marching in a dress with Rubi's face on it. She marched through Fresnillo, marched through Mexico City, and demanded to see Mexican president Felipe Calderon. The comic also graphically recreates one of present-day Mexico's darkest videos. December 16 Marisela was protesting outside the Capitol Building in Chihuahua. A sicario (hitman) arrives, she runs, and she is killed. As Marisela was buried her brother-in-law was found in the streets of Juarez with a plastic bag over his head. The rest of her family flee across the border being mistreated by border guards, and aim to continue her fight from the US.

Norma
Another key story, albeit a very short one, follows Norma Ledesma, the founder of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters). Norma's daughter Paloma disappeared aged 15 in 2002 and was found murdered a month later. Like Lucha, Norma aims to find what happens to disappeared women and find those who perpetrated human rights abuses. Norma bluntly summarises the situation 'There is no way of restoring life to someone no can life be turned backwards to a time before someone was raped or maltreated... so there is no Justice, but there is Truth'.

Josefina

Another major story follows the Reyes-Salazar family, now living in El Paso to escape both the military and cartels. Josefina and Saul Reyes-Salazar were raised by progressives who instilled in them an urge to fight what was right. In 1998 the siblings had successfully prevented a nuclear waste dump from being created in Sierra Blanca. When the femicides began in Juarez Josefina began protesting the murders which resulted in her house being sprayed by gun fire. In 2008 Calderon intensified the War on Drugs in Juarez creating a militarised zone where murders, extortion, and torture became endemic. While protesting the military they disappeared her son Miguel Angel and was returned 16 days later with signs of physical and psychological abuse. Three months later he other son was executed at a wedding, and Miguel Angel was again arrested on an accusation that he was a sicario for the Juarez Cartel. They moved from their home in Guadalupe but when visiting her home there was a kidnap attempt, and as Josefina resisted she was killed on January 3 2010. The family resisted and the local area became enraged by the murder of Josefina - they even started printing the disappearances of family members on milk cartons. In August 2010 Ruben Reyes declared 'Well...here I am' when armed men came to get him - he was then shot. Despite this the family pressed on but as more and more of them were disappeared or tortured, caught between cartels and the army, they fled to the US in 2011. Saul Reyes-Salazar concludes that 'Guadalupe is practically a ruin. I believe that for all these dead there will never be justice...no one will be detained... no one jailed... no one condemned'.

Conclusion

La Lucha concludes in pessimistic terms. It came out that Marisela's driver had been threatened by an attorney from the state attorney's office for refusing to claim that Marisela was working for the Sinaloa Cartel. More members of the Reyes-Salazar family had managed to received asylum in the US, and the Juarez Valley had lost 70% of its population through either murder or inhabitants fleeing. Lucha Castro offers a pessimistic and optimistic look to the future. She states that 'Disappearances and the killing of journalists with impunity is still occurring, but the government doesn't want to talk about it. Our doors, however, will remain open'.

Many of the readers of this blog is in the North Atlantic world (Western Europe, the US, and Canada) where International Women's Day has somewhat lost its radical roots. In many areas it has become an event only for white, middle-class, cis-women, and at its worst openly extorts bigotry - especially against trans women. La Lucha highlights the need for International Women's Day to return to its roots. Abuse and torture against women has become widespread in Juarez and the femicides have largely fallen out of media's attention. My local International Women's Day offers a hopeful future - it resoundingly condemned transphobia, saw talks from an organiser hoping to protect sex workers, and called for collaboration against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (and honoured murdered activist Mariella Franco). Hopefully, International Women's Day can help Lucha Castro and the activists at the Cedehm.

Lucha Castro

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post interesting. Please leave any thoughts and comments. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

If you were interested in reading more on human and women's rights in Mexico here is a quick reading list:
-Jon Sack, Adam Shapiro, and Lucha Castro, La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico, (London: Verso, 2015)
-J.Tuckman, ‘Mexico: The Graphic Tale of Lucha Castro’s struggle to defend women’s rights,’ (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/05/la-lucha-the-story-of-lucha-castro-and-human-rights-in-mexico-graphic-novel; accessed 5 August 2017
-E.Edmonds-Pli and D.Shirk, Contemporary Mexican Politics, Second Edition, (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012)
-A.R.Schmidt Camacho, ‘Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico,’ CR: The Centennial Review, 5:1, (2005), 255-292
-http://cedehm.org.mx