By Keara Courtney
International Women's Day (IWD) on March 8 is a beacon in the struggle for women's liberation.
IWD's history goes back to February 28, 1907, when socialist women in the United States organised national demonstrations to demand political rights for working women. Women socialists were active in organising women into unions, especially in sectors such as textiles and domestic services, where women worked long hours for little pay.
In 1909, a number of women textile workers were sacked on suspicion of supporting unionisation. They organised a walk-out. What became known as "the great uprising" grew into a 13-week strike involving 20,000 workers. They won shorter working hours, better pay and the right to be unionised.
The first IWD march was organised to commemorate this victory and to demand the right to vote. Across Europe and the United States, millions of men and women mobilised in support of women's suffrage.
In Russia, the first IWD march was held in 1913. The revolution in February 1917 (based on the old Russian calendar) was sparked by an IWD march of women workers locked out of the Putilov armaments plant.
The women took to the streets and threw stones and ice at the police. Women began to seize the guns of soldiers. Workers went out on a general strike. Students joined the street demonstrations. The tsar was forced to abdicate.
The first Australian IWD march took place in 1928 in Sydney, and demand an eight-hour day, equal pay for equal work, paid annual leave and a living wage for the unemployed. During the "second wave" of feminism in the 1960s and '70s, IWD became again a major focus for campaigning for women's liberation.
Equal pay for equal work was won in 1972. Women began to enter non-traditional jobs. Some access to abortion services and publicly funded child-care were won. Health services, refuges and housing services were established by women. Discrimination on the basis of gender, marital status or pregnancy was outlawed in 1983.
These gains were won because of the collective strength of women organised in the feminist movement. Today, all these basic rights are under attack. The Liberal government has slashed funding to women's services and is pushing hard to return women to their "proper" place in the home. Before the Liberals, the Labor government attacked working women's right to organise and women's access to education.
The history of the women's liberation movement shows that we need to take to the streets and organise if we are to defend and extend the rights already won. That is why Resistance members around the country help to organise and march on IWD every year.
[See box on this page for details of IWD march and rally organising collectives. Phone your local Resistance branch to find out how to get involved.]