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
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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.
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