Driving past a coffee place near my home yesterday I noticed a special invitation out for women customers, for International Women’s Day. At home, the newspaper had a full page advertisement with similar special offers on jewellery to mark the same day. And then, as I started to look around, I saw it everywhere – community centres celebrating the day with meetings on cookery or healthy eating for women, the Delhi government organizing large seminars on women, a newspaper hosting a ‘summit’ at a luxury hotel featuring women who had probably never held a women’s liberation banner in their hands… if you did not know better, you would think that somehow, International Women’s Day had finally got its due.
And yet, I wonder how many of the women who will attend high profile seminars, or cookery classes or special all-women sessions at the gym, actually know – or indeed care about - the history of this day. Or, how many of the companies that use the moment to market special products are even interested in the history they are drawing on. But today, a hundred years after this day began to be marked as being dedicated to women, it’s worth remembering that history, and reminding ourselves that many of the issues women raised then, are still alive today.
The early years of the twentieth century were years of considerable political activity across the world – including in India where women were active in the movement for liberation and had begun to set up a number of women’s organizations. But it was in the West that women’s day began to be first marked – after early demonstrations in the United States. One of the most significant of these was a 1908 demonstration in NewYork with over 15,000 women demanding voting rights, better pay and shorter working hours.
It wasn’t until two years later though, that at an international conference for working women in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin, leader of the women’s office of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, mooted the idea of an international women’s day. She suggested that this should be an annual event, that women in different countries in the world should use this day to press for their demands. Her suggestion found widespread approval and the idea of International Women’s Day took root. Over time, the day would become one where women took stock, came together to celebrate, to lobby, to share their campaigns and politics. And in some countries it began to be marked as a holiday where women downed tools so to speak, and took the day off.
The day itself came to be fixed later – in the early years, it varied between February and March, and over time, the 8th of March began to be identified as the day for women the world over – kept alive as a political day, by activists and academics within women’s movements. Until, that is, it was taken over by the market.
In India, we’ve been celebrating International Women’s Day for many years. Marked by large rallies and marches in different towns and cities, over the years the day has taken on different aspects in different places. Many events – and they are not always celebratory – have become more local, with groups concentrating on issues that are particular to their areas. But also, in several places, seminars and discussions, festivals of film and theatre have replaced rallies, and discussions on the internet and in blogs have become an important arena for drawing attention to this day. Indeed everywhere women activists have ensured that the day, and its events, retain a political edge and do not lose their feminist moorings. This despite the fact that a day on which demands of various kinds were addressed by the State, has in some ways been taken over by the State to centrestage its ‘achievements’.
What’s most disturbing though is the way in which women’s day has turned into an opportunity to market different products. Today, the market uses this day to focus on those very things that feminists have long raised questions about – cosmetics, jewellery, decorative items for the home. All of these put together do little or nothing to help women win what they so desperately need, their full rights as citizens. Instead, they do everything to turn attention away from the real issues at stake.
So this women’s day, let’s mark the centenary of this important day not by going off to buy the next diamond necklace at a discount, but by remembering that a decade into the twenty first century, there still remains much to be done. There is no other country in the world where female fetuses are killed in the womb in such large numbers as India. None where the law punishes a woman if a complaint made by her against her husband, or in a case of sexual harassment, is judged to be false (and this can happen often in a country where the judiciary and police are so deeply anti-woman). None where rapists are routinely acquitted even if the rape is proved ‘because they have their whole lives before them’ – as if the woman’s life did not matter. None where the real face of poverty is still a woman: hungry, emaciated and worked to the bone, and yet resilient, strong and always ready for battle.
Today, international women’s day is on facebook, on twitter, there are websites dedicated to it, and soap and shampoo makers are furiously thinking up advertising campaigns that will draw on this day to sell their products. Perhaps it’s time for feminists to reclaim their day, to draw on its history, to remind themselves that even if much has been gained, there’s much still to do. It’s time to remind ourselves that we cannot afford to let up the pressure on the State and indeed on ourselves. It’s only when we see the results of this continued pressure, that the celebrations can begin. And one way of beginning them would be to do what our foremothers began with – to reassert the agenda of a social order where women are given their due in decision making!
And yet, I wonder how many of the women who will attend high profile seminars, or cookery classes or special all-women sessions at the gym, actually know – or indeed care about - the history of this day. Or, how many of the companies that use the moment to market special products are even interested in the history they are drawing on. But today, a hundred years after this day began to be marked as being dedicated to women, it’s worth remembering that history, and reminding ourselves that many of the issues women raised then, are still alive today.
The early years of the twentieth century were years of considerable political activity across the world – including in India where women were active in the movement for liberation and had begun to set up a number of women’s organizations. But it was in the West that women’s day began to be first marked – after early demonstrations in the United States. One of the most significant of these was a 1908 demonstration in NewYork with over 15,000 women demanding voting rights, better pay and shorter working hours.
It wasn’t until two years later though, that at an international conference for working women in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin, leader of the women’s office of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, mooted the idea of an international women’s day. She suggested that this should be an annual event, that women in different countries in the world should use this day to press for their demands. Her suggestion found widespread approval and the idea of International Women’s Day took root. Over time, the day would become one where women took stock, came together to celebrate, to lobby, to share their campaigns and politics. And in some countries it began to be marked as a holiday where women downed tools so to speak, and took the day off.
The day itself came to be fixed later – in the early years, it varied between February and March, and over time, the 8th of March began to be identified as the day for women the world over – kept alive as a political day, by activists and academics within women’s movements. Until, that is, it was taken over by the market.
In India, we’ve been celebrating International Women’s Day for many years. Marked by large rallies and marches in different towns and cities, over the years the day has taken on different aspects in different places. Many events – and they are not always celebratory – have become more local, with groups concentrating on issues that are particular to their areas. But also, in several places, seminars and discussions, festivals of film and theatre have replaced rallies, and discussions on the internet and in blogs have become an important arena for drawing attention to this day. Indeed everywhere women activists have ensured that the day, and its events, retain a political edge and do not lose their feminist moorings. This despite the fact that a day on which demands of various kinds were addressed by the State, has in some ways been taken over by the State to centrestage its ‘achievements’.
What’s most disturbing though is the way in which women’s day has turned into an opportunity to market different products. Today, the market uses this day to focus on those very things that feminists have long raised questions about – cosmetics, jewellery, decorative items for the home. All of these put together do little or nothing to help women win what they so desperately need, their full rights as citizens. Instead, they do everything to turn attention away from the real issues at stake.
So this women’s day, let’s mark the centenary of this important day not by going off to buy the next diamond necklace at a discount, but by remembering that a decade into the twenty first century, there still remains much to be done. There is no other country in the world where female fetuses are killed in the womb in such large numbers as India. None where the law punishes a woman if a complaint made by her against her husband, or in a case of sexual harassment, is judged to be false (and this can happen often in a country where the judiciary and police are so deeply anti-woman). None where rapists are routinely acquitted even if the rape is proved ‘because they have their whole lives before them’ – as if the woman’s life did not matter. None where the real face of poverty is still a woman: hungry, emaciated and worked to the bone, and yet resilient, strong and always ready for battle.
Today, international women’s day is on facebook, on twitter, there are websites dedicated to it, and soap and shampoo makers are furiously thinking up advertising campaigns that will draw on this day to sell their products. Perhaps it’s time for feminists to reclaim their day, to draw on its history, to remind themselves that even if much has been gained, there’s much still to do. It’s time to remind ourselves that we cannot afford to let up the pressure on the State and indeed on ourselves. It’s only when we see the results of this continued pressure, that the celebrations can begin. And one way of beginning them would be to do what our foremothers began with – to reassert the agenda of a social order where women are given their due in decision making!
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