Comment Writer Kirstin discusses the stagnating celebrations surrounding International Women’s Day as commodification and marketing take centre stage
In comparison with the fun-filled evolution of events surrounding Pride month, with its well-known origins in the activism of Stonewall progressing to a joyous celebration of LGBTQ+ identity, culture and breakthroughs in legal and social recognition, International Women’s Day just falls flat. What does it actually achieve? Parades have long died out, marches are few and far between, and with the corporate co-opt of the day, buying flowers for the women around you feels a bit like a poor imitation of Valentine’s Day.
Although the exact origins of the start of International Women’s Day are a bit cloudy, it takes inspiration from the labour movement as women marched through New York in 1908 demanding better pay, shorter working hours, and the right to vote. However, the creation of a day to unite women in their call for equality came about through the influence of Clara Zetkin who raised the idea to an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910. This led to the first international celebration in 1911 across Europe and the United States with the date of March 8th being set by women in Russia striking for ‘bread and peace’ in 1917 and then continued by Austria the following year. This tradition has continued, being revitalised in the 1960s with a new sense of female consciousness and feminist internationalism. Yet how much can a symbolic day achieve without real material action?
With the way every-retailer-possible emails you with their latest ‘feminist’ merch (with very few of them actually donating any of their profits to charities supporting women) you would think that the Western world has eradicated misogyny for good. Yet the murders of Breonna Taylor and Sarah Everard on the 13th of March 2020 and 3rd of March 2021 respectively, overshadow any empowered feelings I have. Their deaths are only five days apart from International Women’s Day, yet they are not the subject of conversation. How can we extol our progress when their deaths bookend our so-called day of celebration?
The unpredictable pace of our daily lives has intensified over these past few weeks with Israel and the US launching an attack on February 28th and essentially distracting us from whatever mundane plans we had for the start of March. Yet, using this as an excuse to not focus on women seems contradictory considering some of the very first victims of this conflict were the 165 schoolgirls killed in Minab. We can’t bring them back so should we not be using this International Women’s Day to keep their memory alive?
What has happened to the era where people were marching in the streets, being brave and sharing their stories in the #metoo movement, protesting the overturning of Roe vs Wade? What do these companies think of us? Have they watched the events of the past decade and somehow come to the conclusion that what women want is a tote bag marked up in price because it has a splattering of pink and a somewhat trendy slogan about female empowerment? And what is much more pressing for most women isn’t safety walking home late at night, the closing of the gender pay gap, an ending to period poverty across the world, a systemic change in the medical systems which refuse to take ‘women’s issues’ seriously?
International Women’s Day is no longer a day dedicated to celebrating women or actively trying to fight the system, but rather a commodification of women’s struggles and achievements. And what is the point in that? If this day is going to have any impact, we need to reframe how we celebrate women’s achievements and resurrect our activism.
And nobody needs another mug.
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