International Women's Day is about socialism

Today is International Women's Day, and that means a day for "femvertising".

In much the same way that we've forgotten that Mother's Day was supposed to be an anti-war holiday, and Labor Day was supposed to be in commemoration of the victims of the Haymarket Riot (it's not even mentioned on the Dept. of Labor web site), International Women's Day was inspired by a climatic labor union strike in the United States.

The strike in question was the 1909 Uprising of the 20,000, which was led by lifelong socialist and all-around badass Clara Lemlich. You can read about the strike here.
It's a straight line from that strike to International Women's Day.

The triumph of the ladies’ garment workers’ efforts to have their union recognized led to Socialists all over the country organizing “Women’s Day” marches all over the country the following year, in March 1910. Inspired by the American women’s victory, that year Clara Zetkin, a German Marxist feminist theorist, proposed International Women’s Day at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen that year. In 1911, it was honored for the first time on March 8th, with hundreds of thousands of European women turning out to campaign for labor rights and the right to vote.
On March 8th, 1917, Russian women issued a “Bread and Peace” strike in response to the deaths of 2 million Russian soldiers in World War I, demanding the end of tsarism and a solution to national food shortages. This event has largely been credited with prompting Tsar Nicolas II’s abdication from the throne and Russian women being granted the right to vote; in the following decades, it was primarily celebrated in communist and socialist countries, until the United Nations officially started celebrating International Women’s Day in 1975.

In many countries, International Women’s Day still has political meanings. Turkey is a good example, but there plenty of others.

What’s even more inspiring than these storied origins is that women throughout the world — especially in Latin America and Europe — are observing International Women’s Day by going on strike today.

In Argentina, Spain, and Italy, the major unions are holding general strikes, under pressure from rank-and-file women workers, showing that “it can be called from below,” says Cinzia Arruzza, a Marxist feminist philosophy professor at the New School and one of the organizers of International Women’s Strike USA.

In America, the place where it started, IWD is about selling consumer products.

Why is this important?
Consider the massive 2017 Women's March.
What was it for? I'm not exactly certain, but I am sure that no significant victories came out of it.

Now compare that to Iceland's 1975 Women's Day Off.
dayoff2.jpg

Forty years ago, the women of Iceland went on strike - they refused to work, cook and look after children for a day. It was a moment that changed the way women were seen in the country and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for equality.
...It was November 1980, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a divorced single mother, had won Iceland's presidency that summer. The boy didn't know it, but Vigdis (all Icelanders go by their first name) was Europe's first female president, and the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a head of state.

Many more Icelandic children may well have grown up assuming that being president was a woman's job, as Vigdis went on to hold the position for 16 years - years that set Iceland on course to become known as "the world's most feminist country".

But Vigdis insists she would never have been president had it not been for the events of one sunny day - 24 October 1975 - when 90% of women in the country decided to demonstrate their importance by going on strike.

dayoff.jpg
Now THAT'S how you get people's attention.
One year after Women's Day Off, Iceland passed an equal pay law.
That was almost half a century ago.
One last note: who do you think came up with the idea of Women's Day Off?

The idea of a strike was first proposed by the Red Stockings, a radical women's movement founded in 1970, but to some Icelandic women it felt too confrontational.
...But when the strike was renamed "Women's Day Off" it secured near-universal support, including solid backing from the unions.

Red Stockings were a revolutionary socialist group.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

had the same gumption. Sadly ‘tis not the case. People here live in fear of losing their job, of negativity over their actions, or are just apathetic. Let the next person do something. A lazy society, all around, imho.

We can’t get a revolution going against the wars. The teachers are the only ones showing courage. As I ask in many comment threads - what will it take? What proverbial straw will break the back? Or, will we remain prisoners in our own open air system?
Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

It wasn't a narrow "we demand this" kind of strike. It was broad and nationwide. In that way it was classless, women from all stations. Our unions carve out niches based on power and status, and are very class conscious. It's hard to muster broad uncritical support for a narrow band of workers who may be viewed as a being a higher class than yourself. Wages and benefits like job security and others are just dreams for most workers.

I think that in Iceland unions are different. An article says that roughly half of the Icelanders are in the Icelandic Confederation of Labor, which gives a lot more citizens a stake in their well being. Much more one for all, all for one. The more insular unions in the US became, the less relevant they became to the general public.

Teachers are making inroads because most parents have a direct stake in the outcomes of their kids education directly through the teachers and schools.

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@Snode

It's hard to muster broad uncritical support for a narrow band of workers who may be viewed as a being a higher class than yourself.

If someone is out on strike then they are in the same class.

Wages and benefits like job security and others are just dreams for most workers.

That's the problem. It's not something we should accept.

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@gjohnsit Not sure. Locked out, maybe. They're both tactics. Some unions have enough clout to bring a decent settlement about by striking. Others get squashed. The ILGWU still lives on in UNITE but it's a shadow of itself, shoe makers, textiles, Air controllers. I know we go around on this, but union members (not union leadership) were a big component of electing Reagan. Unions can't be islands of labor expecting support if it's a one way street. Some unions are powerful, like police unions, most NYC unions. I doubt they would feel themselves of our class. They didn't when I tried to join apprenticeship programs in my youth. So maybe some sour grapes, but I just didn't have the connections.

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@Snode

Some unions have enough clout to bring a decent settlement about by striking. Others get squashed.

Too true. That's a fact of life in a capitalist economy.

I know we go around on this, but union members (not union leadership) were a big component of electing Reagan. Unions can't be islands of labor expecting support if it's a one way street. Some unions are powerful, like police unions, most NYC unions. I doubt they would feel themselves of our class.

Mostly true, but that's #1) a class awareness problem. (except maybe for cops, who are essential for the ruling class) #2) my personal opinion is that a labor union without a socialist political agenda isn't a union. It's a guild.

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@gjohnsit Your highlighting the Icelanders was really eye opening. That was solidarity that had no exceptions. I guess some of my problem with American unions is that they operate much like American democracy and it's factions. They have a high and noble set of declarations, but when it comes down to day to day it's all about carving out exceptions. That's how we get played against each other.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

....we have women serving in token positions in the empire while the Democrats chant "USA! USA!" and phony marches that go nowhere because hey, they gotta work tomorrow at their shit jobs for shit-plated insurance and even shittier wages or they'll lose the crumbs they do have.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

lotlizard's picture

Apparently, in the socialist culture of East Germany it was indeed just as big a thing as Mother’s Day, and here in Dresden many people still celebrate it. In the case of my friends, they were already teenagers when the Wall came down so as children they would have internalized it.

Berlin, which is its own German “state” in the German federal system, has now made it an official state holiday, the newest work-free day.

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