Social life or social change?
Social life or social change?
March 8 is International Women's Day. Since 1908, women in almost every country have come together on this date in marches, meetings, rallies and festivals to demand their right to equality with men and for a better world for all.
Over the last few decades, in those countries, like Australia, where the women's liberation movements of the late 1800s (the "first wave") and the 1960s and '70s (the "second wave") were born, flourished and made real advances for women, IWD has taken on more the character of a social event. Marches have been replaced by festivals, and protests by celebrations.
For women in these countries, there is much to celebrate on IWD. Over the last century, women have won the legal right to enter universities, use contraceptives, own property, drive cars, receive equal pay, participate in politics, get a divorce and suffer no discrimination because of their gender or sexuality.
Women today have more self-respect and confidence, and higher expectations for themselves and all women. The fact that it is widely accepted that women can link arms, march, speak out, discuss and sing together as feminists every March 8 is itself cause for celebration.
But an honest celebration on IWD involves recognising that these rights and freedoms, however limited, were the result of long, hard and courageous struggles by generations of women before us (and those men who supported them). The freedom to celebrate on IWD was fought for and won by women who knew that celebrating past victories was nowhere near enough.
They were women who dared to be political and who, in the face of ridicule, vilification, incarceration, assault and sometimes murder, dared to educate and organise themselves to take collective action on their convictions.
They were women who refused to lower their sights from the ultimate goal of liberation for all women and who used IWD (and the rest of the year) to push the boundaries of change, to build on the past achievements of the movement to strengthen it, and to campaign for genuine — not just formal — equality.
In many countries, struggles for the most basic of human rights for women are still going on — against the genital mutilation of girls, for equal educational opportunities, for divorce and reproductive rights, even for the right of female babies to live.
But in countries like Australia, too, while women have more legal rights, the weakness of the women's liberation movement today has opened the door to an erosion of those rights that previous generations of women had already won. Past gains are threatened because millions of women are no longer taking to the streets and publicly campaigning for free, 24-hour child-care; for the repeal of all abortion laws; for equal pay in practice; for an end to violence against women; for affirmative action for women, especially women of colour, in education and employment; and against all other forms of discrimination against women.
In this context, elevating the celebratory, social aspect of IWD over challenging and demanding change in the present undermines women's liberation.
If we are to celebrate anything, it is that history has been full of women who have given so much of their lives to building a broad, democratic, mass political movement of women which aims to change the world fundamentally— to rid it for all time of sexism, racism, imperialism and the exploitation of humanity in all its forms.
These women, who every day and everywhere inspired, encouraged and organised millions of other women to take collective political action, are not just examples to be proudly remembered, but examples to follow.
By Lisa Macdonald