It is that time of the year again when the neighbourhood beauty parlour offers special beauty packages for women, the giant corporations entice women with special discounts on purchases, and media houses air programmes focusing on “women of substance”. Yes, indeed, it is the International Women’s Day, and everyone feels compelled to say or do something that acknowledges the day. International Women’s Day, if separated from its rather political, democratic and dare I say feminist history, seems like another innocuous marketing and retail opportunity in a world essentially characterised by consumption.
The month of March in 1857 was a momentous one in our part of the world as the first signs of unrest against the British Empire were being articulated. In far away America, on March 8, 1857, garment workers in New York City who were mostly women, marched and picketed, demanding improved working conditions, a 10-hour day, and equal rights for women. Exactly half a century later, on March 8, 1908, their sisters in the garment sector in New York marched again, honouring the 1857 march, demanding the right to vote and better working conditions.
On both occasions the women had to brave police brutality. 1910 saw the marking of March 8 in the American calendar as a day to honour women and their work.
In the backdrop of the many international conferences and meetings held to discuss the conditions of working women, America witnessed a big and forceful agitation by largely immigrant women workers in 1912, which was popularly referred to as the Lawrence Textile Strike. The women asked not just for more wages, but a more dignified and humane life — immortalised in the slogan “Bread and Roses” inspired probably by a James Oppenheim poem from 1911:
...As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
Meanwhile, Europe witnessed numerous women’s solidarity marches for peace and better living conditions during the turbulent years leading to the First World War. On the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, massive demonstrations led by women such as Alexandra Kollontai (an early Russian feminist) to protest harsh living conditions and rising prices captured the imagination of the Russian people including Lenin. This massive demonstration was held on the last Sunday in February 1917 — March 8 according to the Gregorian calendar.
Meanwhile, women in India were beginning to be drawn to the freedom struggle and by 1918 the fiery Anasuya Sarabhai was leading the textile mill strike in Ahmedabad. Everywhere women were demanding justice and seeking freedom.
For long, however, history overlooked these accounts. It is to set the record straight and to create a gender-just world that the International Women’s Day is celebrated. The United Nations declared 1975 to be the International Women’s Year and established an international convention of celebrating March 8 as International Women’s Day to honour women and their work.
It is the united and consistent efforts of women across the world that has drawn the attention of the world to the inequalities, deprivations, discriminations and unfreedoms faced by women over a long period of time. We have to thank our feminist foremothers, for it is because of them that today women in most parts of the world have the right to vote, can assert their right to dignity and bodily integrity and have a right to earn their livelihood. Indian women can tick all these boxes affirmatively, for the law of the land acknowledges these rights. These rights have come to us not on a platter, but as consequence of a long process of feminist struggles and debates.
However, despite this some of us remain unwilling to associate ourselves with this feminist legacy. Well-known feminist activist, Kamla Bhasin describes a feminist as “anyone who recognises that women are discriminated against within families, at the place of work and in society in general, and who takes action against this discrimination”. This suggests that even men can be feminists. Women who may not wish to join organisations, or be part of campaigns would still qualify to be feminists, if they seek dignity for themselves and want (among many other things) equal opportunities for their sons and daughters.
Being a feminist helps us to take up the cause of men, women and trans people, who might face different kinds of discrimination. Some women feel that there are enough opportunities and freedoms available to them and that they are no longer oppressed. While individual women might have overcome some barriers, global statistics indicate a different story.
For the first time in human history, there are fewer women than men on this planet thanks mainly due to the rampant sex-selective abortions in China and India. The employment rate of women in the formal sector in many countries has been going down while the gross domestic product has been rising. Many aspects of our society such as religion and traditions are still steeped in patriarchy. The media and advertisements are filled with misogynistic images and narratives.
The need for a feminist worldview — one that privileges democracy, freedom and equality — is more pertinent today than ever before. Feminism is about constant questioning and interrogation of the largest and most remote structures such as the global trade and political systems on the one hand, and the everyday practices of an individual’s life on the other. The belief that democracy at the global level is linked to democratic practices within the family and in the manner in which inter-personal relationships are conducted is the basis of the now very well-known feminist slogan “the personal is political”. Freedom and dignity for women within the family, at school and in the university, at the workplace, in Parliament, on the bus, in the marketplace and everywhere — this is the philosophy behind the International Women’s Day. Surely no one can grudge this!
