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8 March every year is marked as International Women’s Day. Depending upon which part of the world you are, you might get a day off, a free ticket on public transport, see messages of discounts at beauty parlours, shops or in bars and if you are part of some political collective, then you might be part of marches and demonstrations. It is celebrated across- from universities, government institutions to feminist collectives. In recent years, in many cities of the world, women and their allies organize marches, strikes and other kinds of agitations as well. At a more institutional level, ‘Only Women’ quiz competitions or cricket matches are held, and women going out in the name of a day to ‘celebrate themselves’ or be given pink roses are common. It is reminded in very boring speeches how women have to be respected, and that they are mothers and sisters, or that women were like the fiery Jhalkari bai. A range of activities denoting the wide ideological spectrum in which feminism lives around us will surround you that day. The purpose of a day is often lost in the cacophony of polite greetings and too many ritualistic events. Yet it is interesting, the myriad effects that marking such a day could have in the lives of many people, including putting seeds of inspiration and curiosity in young minds. There is a symbolic relevance to marking such a day, since it symbolizes women’s rights as well as women’s quest to live without violence. However the nature of the celebrations of the day itself bears witness to the fact that the agenda of women’s liberation is not a threat to any institution, in fact today, states actively carry and give meanings to that agenda, the most prominent being a shift from women’s liberation to women’s empowerment.
8th March and its historical evolution can be seen as having two ideological trajectories. One pertains directly to the labour movement and its role in political struggles. The other is more recent, a more institutional orientation after the UN Declaration in 1975 for 8 March as International Women’s Day. Since then, it has been adopted as a day to mark progress in women’s rights throughout the world.
The trajectory preceding that is not very linear. It was marked many times since the late 19th and early 20th century, often in close relation with the workers movement. In 1857, it seems like there was a march to protest against the harsh working conditions in the garment factories, in the USA, especially in New York. In 1907, the socialist women’s conference held in Berlin as well as marches in 1909 organized to commemorate this very struggle, with definite demands like equal pay for equal work, right to vote, reduced working hours to eight and right to free education and ration were articulated. In 1911, with the triangle shirtwaist factory fire in the latter part of March; became rallying points for strikes and coalitions for the rights of women workers. By 1911, the international working women’s day started to be celebrated and marked through protests and strikes- being an expression of the political struggles of women workers. This moment was also arrived through solidarities of the suffragists who considered it important to place the right to vote for women along with these economic demands. In 1917, on 8 March women in Russia protested against inflation and hunger, under the banner of ‘bread and peace’, and it became a flash point for the October revolution. The soldiers of tsar refused to fire on the women workers, this act becoming a flashpoint for the revolutionary struggle in Russia. In 1922, 8 March was adopted as a day to mark the contributions of women to communist revolutions.
For a while, International working women’s day became symbolic for women’s contributions to the communist revolution as well as an emphasis of abolishing household oriented chores and more specifically women’s identity being tied to these specific chores. Precisely why certain initiatives like community kitchens, state support in child care, etc were seen as ways to socialise these tasks than limit it to the domain of the private family and women. In the Soviet Union, right to separate, as in divorce was recognized and made easy for women to initiate in 1918. Somehow there is a huge gap in historicizing how 8 March was marked between the two world wars. It seems like it was commemorated in Moscow, throughout Red Vienna, marches in Spain and Australia were held, and definitely a lot of history brewed in Frankfurt kitchens. China too adopted a partial public holiday policy towards 8 March. It became the flashpoint for resistance to fascism in the context of Spain, in Tehran, amidst the Iranian revolution of 1979, women protested for 6 days against changing regulations on women’s mobility in the post-Shah world. However there is broad consensus that it has the widespread popularity of today, only after the UN adoption in 1975. A mere checking of the list of countries which have a declared public holiday points to the erstwhile socialist and communist countries in carrying the legacy of women’s liberation to 8 March.
In the aftermath of liberation struggles in the colonies as well as the tumultuous period of the 1960s and 70s across the world, which witnessed radicalisation of oppressed identities and youth, one may have to question what it means to achieve widespread popularity through the UN. Did it neutralise the militancy and the anti establishment of women’s struggles throughout the world, did it blunt the sharp criticism of capitalism and patriarchy and theories of its interconnections as systems of oppression and exploitation? Behold, was feminism getting accepted by the ruling classes? Notions of [formal] equality and women’s rights started becoming ways in which neoliberal politics of the 1980s started articulating a gender politics of its own.
Interestingly, closer home in South Asia, it was also the time when home grown women’s movement grew in the postcolonial context, making law, violence and state the centers of its direct intervention. There was a certain way in which the women’s movement was getting recast in these contexts. The need to foreground the specific experiences of oppression, dalit and adivasi women in India have also organized separately in India. The politics of abortion rights in the US, working hours in workplaces and women’s safety- all have been issues that contemporary feminism has been reckoning with.
With the neoliberal turn, suddenly, freedom was everywhere. Freedom found its highest expression in turning a person into a consumer, and occasionally as identities needing representation. Anything beyond that was seen as utopian, unrealistic. Coming back to the question of women’s liberation, which was the social question of the international working women’s day, maybe that agenda has been displaced from the mainstream in the current juncture. In the mid 2000s, it was often called Pink day or one could even find Archies Women’s Day cards. Today, a quick search on the internet shows that most brands and quick commerce platforms are offering women’s day special packages- Blinkit ofcourse going an extra mile to deliver ‘pamper packages’ in 8 minutes.
In the current political scenario, it has become self-evident that – that women’s freedom is intrinsically related to the freedom of all of humanity. Somehow it isn’t required to be established that the fight against patriarchy is intrinsically tied to the fight against capitalism and imperialism. Patriarchy as a system of exploitation is used by dominant economic relations to further exacerbate inequality in the system as well as play upon the oppression of specific identities. Market creates an illusion that ‘everyone’ is an equal player in this economy, and tells us that there are no specific ways in which identities stand to lose out on. While it creates opportunities for a loud minority to benefit off the market expansion under neoliberalism, capitalism pushes forth the immiseration of the silent majority- including a large section of women, including workers, peasants, adivasis, dalits, student-youth and landless.
Ultimately, the evolution of 8 March from a day of mass strikes to a day of discounts reflects a broader attempt to de-politicize the feminist struggle. When “liberation” is swapped for “empowerment,” the systemic interlocking structures of capitalism and patriarchy are left unchallenged, replaced by the individual’s power to consume. To truly honor its radical legacy, International Working Women’s Day must be reclaimed as a day to reiterate the need for transformation over the neoliberal breaking of glass ceilings.
