Women’s Day, blink and you miss it
If you think International Women's Day is an irrelevance, then you probably have the most cause for celebration.
International Women's Day seems to have lost its nerve. It was Sunday, but you might have missed it.
This year I didn't see a single woman out and about donning the green and purple and spied only the most cursory mention of it in the weekend papers, as an aside in a report of an alleged sexual assault; hardly inspiring stuff.
Perhaps it is because younger women no longer feel the day is relevant to them or maybe it has just slipped so far off the radar of social consciousness that they aren't even aware of the day's significance.
Originally I too was reluctant to even comment on the event as it seemed a bit old hat and I hardly have anything new to add. Then I mentioned it to a friend who had no idea what I was talking about. In the ensuing conversation it emerged she didn't know what a suffragette was either. To clarify this is an educated, sophisticated, intelligent, liberated young woman (she's one of my friends after all), so why didn't she know about the sisterhood's day of days? Probably because she's under thirty.
If you've never heard of it read a quick overview of the history here.
Equal rights are worth celebrating and some messages bear repeating. So let's bring back the profile of International Women's Day. Any complaints that it lacks relevant should be incorporated as proof positive of progress worth celebrating.
The first I ever heard of all this was when as an eleven year old a girl one of my classmates rocked up to school on March 8th with one green sock and one purple sock accessorising her uniform. Of course the socks weren't self explanatory, but they led to her being teased, which in turn led to her explaining, which resulted in a class wide conversation about the history of the women's movement.
It's sobering to think that something as simple as a mismatched pair of socks worn in defiance can be an effective peaceful political demonstration. In retrospect that day was the start of my awareness of feminism.
March 8 means many things to many people. For activists living in societies where women are still denied equal rights there's a rawness and urgency to the day which is difficult for young Australian women to appreciate. Imagine you didn't have the right to vote, and you may begin to feel a bit more sentimental about the day.
Nevertheless there are many battles still being fought on our home turf, which should provide sufficient relevance. The continued failure of the federal government to decriminalise abortion is one. The continued discrepancy in executive pay along gender lines is another. The continued under representation of women in politics is another.
Here's where I will have lost some of you, but don't worry, it's not necessary to agree on every single policy issue or motif traditionally associated with the day to be entitled to celebrate and embrace it.
To have been born in Australia in the last hundred years is one of the luckiest strokes of fate a girl could ask for.
Remember, if you don't feel International. Women's Day has any relevance for you then it is only so because of what the women's movement has already achieved, why not celebrate that?
Next year, I'm going to break out the green and purple.
catherine
March 10, 2009 at 12:05 am
belated celebrations
instead of waiting until next year, lets just make it a belated celebration. In my office this year – wednesday the 11th is Women's day ! I knew almost nothing about it but now that i have read your blog honouring women and their contributions and achievements is better late than never.
olgabodrova
March 11, 2009 at 12:05 am
IWD in Russia
In the country I come from, March 8th is celebrated to the same extent as Victory Day or New Year, and it's always been my favourite. It's a public holiday in Russia (as well as all former republics of the Soviet Union) and if it falls on a weekend, you get a free day on Monday. In a way, it can be regarded as a combination of western Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, only much bigger. Forgetting to congratulate your mother, sister or girlfriend on March 8th equals forgetting her birthday (a mortal offence).
On the 8 March Eve the whole country is transformed. Women of all ages are being treated to flowers, gifts, cards and songs. Little kids make scrappy greeting cards for their mothers, schoolgirls receive presents from their schoolmates, teachers are showered with flowers, at workplace men celebrate their women colleagues. On the day of 8 March, all TV channels run special programmes tailored for the occasion, there are special performances and concerts everywhere.
March 8th in Russia did have a distinct political flavour back to the fist half of the last century, but by the time my generation was born, it mostly lost it and remained the day when people have a special occasion to express their love and respect for every woman in their life.
Interestingly, as big as March 8th is for Russians, we don't have a tradition to wear purple and green on that day and I am ashamed to admit I've never heard of these colours being associated with the international women's movement until I've read this blog. 🙂
sally.rose
March 11, 2009 at 12:21 am
Celebration, Protest or Both ?
I have always wanted to visit Russia and now I think March would be a great time to go, it sounds like a wonderful celebration. It is interesting that the political roots of the day originate in Russia but now it is a non-politicised celebration there. One of the reasons I think it is so important to keep celebrating it is that there are still some countries where women don't have the vote. Remembering the date can also be a fantastic catalyst for further advancement in other areas where there is still a struggle for equal rights. In 1958 in Sydney protests were staged on March 8 to repeal the leglislation that required women to step down from public service positions when they married. They were successful. Can you imagine today's Australian public service without any married women?
I'm having trouble figuring out exactly why the suffragettes chose green and purple so if anybody knows please share.
Zacha
March 20, 2009 at 4:17 am
The Colours
According to the magic of Google Books, the colours were Purple, Green and White. And they were introduced by Emmaline Pethick Lawrence in 1908, just before the Suffragette movements' big Hyde Park rally of June 21 that year.
References:
Fashioning the Body Politic by Wendy Parkins
The Women's Sufferage Movement by Elizabeth Crawford
olgabodrova
March 24, 2009 at 12:26 am
Just found this through Google
"The Suffragettes adopted the colours of Green, White and Violet to stand for their slogan "Give Women the Vote"."
also
"The colours were said to represent:
More recently, two changes have occured: the use of the colour white has more recently been rejected as ‘purity' is a controversial issue and attitudes towards the role of ‘purity' from women differ greatly; the introduction of the colour gold representing ‘a new dawn' has been commonly used to represent the second wave of feminism."
http://bhagya.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/history-of-international-womens-day/
sally.rose
March 25, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Thank you
Thank you Zacha & Olga – Full marks for your blog homework !