Republican News · Thursday 6 March 2003

IT STARTED WITH A STRIKE

8 March 2003 - International Women's Day

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

On the last Sunday of February 1908, socialist women from all over the US participated in large demonstrations calling for the right to vote. At the start of the 20th century, more and more women throughout the world had entered the paid work force, but remained stuck in gender segregated jobs. They worked mainly in textiles, manufacturing and domestic services, where conditions were wretched and wages a pittance.

These were dismal and bitter years for women, who faced not only desperate working conditions, but home lives rife with poverty and often violence.

As the first decade of the century began to draw to a close, women recognised that being disenfranchised meant that few people were obliged to listen to their problems, and specifically, do anything about them.

Throughout the western world, women from all social strata began their campaign for the vote.

A year later in the US, women chose the last Sunday of February to strike for better conditions in the workplace. This was the first National Women's Day.

By 1910, Women's Day was being taken up by socialists and feminists in countries outside the US. The notion of international solidarity between the exploited workers had long been established as a socialist principle, but the mobilisation of women proved controversial, even within the socialist movement.

Lena Lewis, a US socialist, declared in 1910, that the day wasn't a time to celebrate anything, but rather a time for anticipating the struggle to come, when "we may eventually and forever, stamp out the last vestige of male egotism, and his desire to dominate over women".

The first official International Women's Day was held in March 1911.

A move towards the day may have began in 1908, but it is actually rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men.

Women through history have used solidarity to bring about change. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for 'liberty, equality and fraternity' marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.

International Women's Day is still marked, and in some countries is recognised as a national holiday. Women on all continents, despite national boundaries, linguistic, cultural, ethnic economic and political differences come together to celebrate a day that represents nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

In 1974, IWD was given official recognition by the UN and taken up by many governments who hadn't actually known of its existence.

Governments have often chosen to introduce policy on the day. In 1974, the Cuban government introduced a new marriage code, making household chores the responsibility of men and women and in 1984, the French Women's Right's Minister announced a new anti-sexist law aimed at the press and advertising industries.

Women have never seen the day as purely one for celebration. They have often used it to make history, as happened in 1913, when women held rallies around the world to protest against the imminent war, and in 1982, when women in Iran courageously discarded their veils.

The most famous International Women's Day occurred during the Russian Revolution. In 1917, women there chose the last Sunday in February to strike for 'bread and peace'. Political leaders at the time opposed the strike but the women went ahead anyway. The rest is history; four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on the 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar elsewhere.

Whether you are a career woman, a homemaker, or a single mother struggling to make ends meet, if you are a woman, International Women's Day is your day. It's a day for women to come together and recognise the achievements that have been made in the battle against oppression, prejudice and equality. Until this battle is won, International Women's Day will always be more than just a celebration of women. It will continue to be a day marking the struggles to come.

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STUCK IN THE PAST

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

"The situation of women and girls throughout the world lies in stark contrast with the grand rhetoric of the international community". Amnesty International issued this harsh message last week on its International Women's Day web page.

There are many people in this world, specifically men, but also some women, who think that International Women's Day is nothing more than a symbol, akin to the equally useless 'Mother's Day' or 'Valentine's Day'. They grudgingly admit that maybe at the start of the last century the day had some meaning, after all, those pesky women wouldn't have been happy unless they'd been given the vote. They cannot understand why, now they have the franchise, women continue to make a big deal once a year.

If they took a moment to read even the smallest amount of literature on International Women's Day, they might change their mind.

Amnesty International is blunt in its description of the problems still faced by women throughout the world. From it you can learn that more women and girls die each day because of various forms of gender based discrimination, than as a result of any other form of human rights abuse. It tells us how, every year a vast number of women and young girls are mutilated, battered to death, burned alive, raped, trafficked for domestic and sexual purposes, treated as second class citizens, forcibly circumcised and subjected to a whole range of discriminatory practices in the name of religion, tradition or culture, all simply because of their gender.

Despite the promises and declarations made five years ago at the fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, there have been very few positive developments taken by governments to advance women's rights and protect them from the plethora of human rights abuses that they face.

There have been a few achievements made by the international community to help protect women from abuses. The establishment of the International Criminal Court and its classification of rape and other forms of sexual violence has criminalised those who use rape as a weapon of war. Women have always been particularly at risk in areas of armed conflict. In Bosnia, East Timor, Pakistan, Kosovo and several other regions, mass rape, forced pregnancy and sexual assault were used a military strategy, and the women who suffered, rarely if ever, had their voice heard.

The International Criminal Court has promoted awareness of this kind of crime, as well as classifying all abuse of women as crimes against humanity.

The problems faced by women in the world's poorer regions and areas torn apart by war far outweigh the problems women face in the first world, but there are still inequalities. In Ireland, for example, women's roles have changed dramatically over the past few decades, but they are still under-represented, under-paid and under-appreciated because of their gender.

Irish women have the vote, there is legislation preventing violence, harassment and discrimination against women, and it is generally accepted, or at least they say it is, that women are equal to men and actually surpass them in certain areas.

d yet women in Ireland still earn just 74% of male earnings, still perform more than 80% of household chores, represent only a tiny percent of those in positions of decision making, be it in political parties, government, or the civil service, and still retain the ultimate responsibility for children. Women are 30% more likely to be part time workers because of their household responsibilities and men are more likely to be in receipt of job-related fringe benefits because of longer hours, such as pension entitlements, medical insurance and housing and mortgage benefits.

Women who choose to work full-time in the home, not only miss out on all of these benefits, but receive little recognition, financially or socially, for their work.

In addition to this, in the last 15 years women in Ireland are more likely than men to be living below the poverty line.

Irish women also tend to still face domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse, with the veil of secrecy which lay over this kind of abuse having only been lifted slightly in the last century.

Sexist inequality still exists in Ireland, and every other country, even though in many, there is legislation to prevent it.

International Women's Day is used as a day to remind the whole world that women are still searching for equality. There has been enormous developments made in the first world since the first IWD took place in 1911, but in some parts of the world, virtually no progress has been made.

Throughout this week, events will be taking place to celebrate the day, including marches, discussion groups and social events, and 80 years on from the day when women first used IWD to protest against war, at the time the First World War, women worldwide will be using IWD 2003 to voice their protest against the imminent war on Iraq.

Today, a central organising principle of the work of the UN is that no enduring solution to society's most threatening social, economic and political problems can be found without the full participation, and the full empowerment, of the world's women.