March is Women’s History Monthh in the United States, established by Congress to coincide with International Women’s Day (IWD) which falls on March 8th. The latter is observed around the globe to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women and is often an event organized as a rallying point to build support for women’s rights and participation in the political and economic arenas.

I don’t know if I’ve been asleep at the wheel (I hope not!), but only in the last couple of years did I notice that major network news as well as my own local news actually mention International Women’s Day.

What took so long?!

Didn’t US media want to recognize half of humanity? Just for a day?! Or are we as the United States of America – the wealthiest, most powerful nation on the planet, so full of ourselves that we don’t need to to participate in acknowledging women’s contributions to society on a global scale? We’ve got Women’s History month – which covers women in the US (though the UK, Australia, and Canada have their own versions) and that’s good enough?

Let the rest of the world and countless NGOs (non-governmental organizations) address and celebrate women’s achievements and call for addressing inequality?

International Women’s Day isn’t titillating news?

This year marks the 110th anniversary of the first official International Women’s Day, which was on March 19th, 1911, and which was observed by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Across Europe, women demanded the right to vote and to hold public office, and protested against employment sex discrimination.

This event was preceded by the first “Woman’s Day” celebration which took place in Chicago on May 3rd, 1908. Organized by the U.S. Socialist Party, it brought together an audience of 1,500 women who demanded economic and political equality, on a day officially dedicated to “the female workers’ causes.”

The following year, on February 28th, 1909, in New York City, the Socialist Party of America celebrated “National Woman’s Day“, with 15,000 women who protested long work hours, low pay, and the lack of voting rights in New York City.

Inspired by these American initiatives, an International Socialist Women’s Conference was organized in August 1910 ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark. Leading German socialists Luise Zietz and Clara Zetkin proposed the establishment of an annual International Woman’s Day as a strategy to promote equal rights, including suffrage, for women.

More than 100 female delegates from 17 countries unanimously endorsed the proposal!

International Women’s Day became an official holiday in Russia in 1913; however, women still experienced difficulties caused by WWI. While men were off at war, women dealt with food shortages and a government who wouldn’t listen to them.

Not listening has consequences…bad move, dudes!

On March 8th, 1917 (February 23 in the former Russian calendar), tens of thousands of Russian women took to the streets demanding change. The unified cry for help paved the way for Russian women to be granted voting rights soon after. The official International Women’s Day eventually switched to March 8th.

Though gaining broader recognition in the United States only recently (according to my observations), it’s been widely celebrated worldwide.

According to Wikipedia:

IWD is an official holiday in several countries worldwide, including Afghanistan,Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Germany (Berlin only), Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia,Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Zambia.

In some countries, such as Australia, Cameroon, Croatia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, and Chile; IWD is not an official public holiday, but is widely observed nonetheless.

Regardless of legal status, in much of the world, it is customary for men to give female colleagues and loved ones flowers and small gifts. In some countries (such as Bulgaria and Romania) it is also observed as an equivalent of Mother’s Day, where children also give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.

Can you imagine having a day off of work for International Women’s Day?! Woo hoo!

I was quite pleased to see my local news station as well as a major network news channel mention IWD on March 8th this year (finally). Kudos to them.

On the national level we have Women’ History Month, which began much later in our history; March was designated as Women’s History Month by Congress in 1987. Women’s History Month is a celebration of women’s contributions to history, culture and society, inspired by the first International Women’s Day in 1911.

But it was not until 1978 – when the school district of Sonoma, California organized a week-long celebration of women’s contributions to culture, history and society – that the seeds planted for the future Women’s History Month. Presentations were given at dozens of schools, hundreds of students participated in a “Real Woman” essay contest and a parade was held in downtown Santa Rosa.

The History website states that a few years later, the idea had caught on within communities, school districts and organizations across the country.

And in February 1980, President Jimmy Carter issued the first presidential proclamation declaring the week of March 8 as National Women’s History Week.

He said:

From the first settlers who came to our shores, from the first American Indian families who befriended them, men and women have worked together to build this nation. Too often the women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength and love of the women who built America was as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well.

As Dr. Gerda Lerner has noted, ‘Women’s History is Women’s Right.’ It is an essential and indispensable heritage from which we can draw pride, comfort, courage, and long-range vision. I ask my fellow Americans to recognize this heritage with appropriate activities during National Women’s History Week, March 2–8, 1980.

I urge libraries, schools, and community organizations to focus their observances on the leaders who struggled for equality – Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and Alice Paul. Understanding the true history of our country will help us to comprehend the need for full equality under the law for all our people.

This goal can be achieved by ratifying the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that ‘Equality of Rights under the Law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.’

(Carter was referring to the Equal Rights Amendment, which was never ratified, not to the amendment which did become the 27th Amendment to the United States Constitution after his presidency.)

The U.S. Congress followed suit the next year, passing a resolution establishing a national celebration. Six years later, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to expand the event to the entire month of March…after a series of joint resolutions, that is.

In contrast to the creation of International Women’s Day – which took just a few years, it took nearly a decade for the United States to officially recognize and celebrate the contributions of women. Think about that. I thought we’re supposed to be the the leader of the free world. The most powerful nation on Earth that other nations look up to?

Why was it so hard for our elected leaders to recognize and commemorate women’s contributions to America?

I don’t know the answer to that. But I suspect that there was strong resistance from some elected officials and members of society alike to lifting up half of humanity – by recognizing women who throughout history have advocated and continue to advocate for women’s health and freedom to control their own reproductive health without governmental interference, family-friendly workplace conditions, suffrage for just not themselves but every citizen, laws to protect them from domestic abuse, laws to protect them against gender discrimination at work, laws to eliminate gender discrimination in the home (such as in matters of abuse, finance, divorce, and inheritance), and so on.

Maybe this resistance is really rooted in a power mentality, in which certain folks have the idea women should “stay in their place”, that women need to stay put at home – barefoot, pregnant, and uneducated so they can be controlled?

Not!

Women are no less worthy than men. And no one is entitled to have their way with women. We are not property. Not sex objects. Not punching bags. Not cute doggies meant to obey, sit, cook, and clean, at anyone’s whim. Not brainless dolls meant to stay quiet, not think too much, and be told “Don’t worry your pretty little head!”

And certainly not prisoners meant to be told when and where to go beyond the confines of our home.

Women ought to go anywhere they damn well please! I’m not into dehumanizing women, thank you very much.

I don’t think one day internationally and one month nationally to put women front and center of our attention is asking too much. Not when women in the United States and all around the world are still experiencing pay ineqity, gender discrimination at work or school, threats to their reproductive health, threats to their well-being if they are in an abusive relationship or living in a conflict-ridden area, threats to their livelihoods if they’ve lost their jobs due to a pandemic, and relentless misogyny if they dare speak their minds.

Let women speak their minds!

Clearly and loudly. Without fear of retribution. Without any apology for being who we are and regardless of what we look like and where we came from.

I say hurray to all those who made International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month possible!

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
~ Audre Lorde

Sources

Wikipedia – Women’s History Month
Women’s History Month.gov
History.com
International Women’s Day
Origins – Ohio State University
Good Housekeeping
Wikipedia – International Women’s Day
ThoughtCo
United Nations