I have been having incredible difficulty getting people to participate in the celebration of international's women's day on the daily kos and was getting incredibly frustrated. I simply could not understand why people were not volunteering to write something to commemorate a day celebrated all over the world. In trying to prepare my diary, I decided to do some research on the history of the date and this lead me to the wikipedia page on International Women's day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
It was only then that I realised that this holiday in honour of women that is celebrated around the world and which was given official sanction by the UN in 1975 is simply not celebrated in the US except by members of the left, feminists and trade union members and organisers.
The fact that I had never knew this before despite having grown up in the US and living there until 1993 is rather surprising; in my home, we celebrated it. However, I guess that, just like the day's history has many different explanations of from whence it derived, it is where you are from, your class background and the political background of your family and a person's politics that determines whether this day is one which you choose to commemorate.
Perhaps, some of this depends on how you see the struggle for women's rights, whether in a specific national struggle, an international struggle, whether it is a struggle for reform of a system or whether you believe that reform is unlikely to achieve true and lasting political, social and economic equality for women. But that may be something specific to the US, as in other countries which have a long tradition of commemorating the day, like Italy, International Women's Day is celebrated by men and boys giving a yellow flower called Mimosa to women.
What is remarkable about international women's day is that it is a day commemorating the struggle for economic and political equality, for justice, for women's suffrage, and for the rights of women; it is a day to honour the struggle by human beings for justice and it is a day that is not celebrated or commemorated in the US.
Some music and a wonderful video to set the stage
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Ironically, the history of international women's day is inextricably linked to the struggle for trade union formation and women's rights in the United States. There are many different versions of what lead to the creation of International Women's Day.
Early 20th century US labour history
Interestingly enough while people may have heard the name of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, it is often mostly known due to the horrific fire in 1911. However, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory plays quite a role in the history of trade union struggles in NYC; it was in response to the horrific working conditions that workers staged a short-term strike which resulted in a lock-out by the company. This led to a 14 week strike known as the "Uprising of 20,000." (
http://en.wikipedia.org/...)
"The news of the strike spread quickly to all the New York garment workers. At a series of mass meetings, after the leading figures of the American labor movement spoke in general terms about the need for solidarity and preparedness, Clara Lemlich rose to speak about the conditions she and other women worked under and demanded an end to talk and the calling of a strike of the entire industry. The crowd responded enthusiastically and, after taking a traditional Yiddish oath, "If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise," voted for a general strike. Approximately 20,000 out of the 32,000 workers in the shirtwaist trade walked out in the next two days."
Some music to enjoy (well without the music):
The Uprising of the Twenty Thousand
Dedicated to the Waistmakers of 1909
In the black of the winter of nineteen nine,
When we froze and bled on the picket line,
We showed the world that women could fight
And we rose and won with women's might.
Chorus:
Hail the waistmakers of nineteen nine,
Making their stand on the picket line,
Breaking the power of those who reign,
Pointing the way, smashing the chain.
And we gave new courage to the men
Who carried on in nineteen ten
And shoulder to shoulder we'll win through,
Led by the I.L.G.W.U.
(From Let's Sing! Educational Department, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, New York City, n.d.,
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/... )."
The strike was not completely successful. While Union recognition was not achieved, conditions on working hours, health and safety standards and wages were agreed but many employers in the industry (including the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory owners) refused to sign. In 1910, the ILGWU led a strike of 60,000 cloakmakers called "The Great Revolt" that lasted several months and which led to higher wages, union recognition rudimentary health benefits, and an agreement of arbitration rather than strikes to settle disagreements between workers and employers. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/...)
The Creation of International Women's Day
The declaration of an international women's day was called by the Socialist Party of America in 1909 and was celebrated across the US on February 28th. In fact, it was celebrated in the US on the last Sunday in February up until 1913 (
http://www.un.org/...).
In 1910, at the Socialist (second) International (
second international) in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin (
Clara Zetkin) suggested the creation of International Women's day was established to honour women's rights and to support the struggle for women's suffrage.
In 1911, the first international women's day was celebrated on March 19th by demonstrations in Austria (1918), Germany (1918), Denmark (1915) and Switzerland (1971) where over 1 million women and men attended the demonstrations. The dates in parentheses indicate when women achieved not only the right to vote, but the right to vote independently of property qualifications (
women's suffrage timeline). This most basic right of bourgeois democracies was denied to women and is still denied in many countries.
Some More US Labour History
And this leads me once again to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and the fire on March 25th 1911. The death of 146 people (17 men, 129 women mostly young immigrants; 146 out of 500 people employed at the company) either burnt to death or who died after jumping from the building.
These deaths all happened in the space of 18 minutes when a rag caught on fire in the space housing the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory (they occupied the 8-10 floors of the Asch building); in order to prevent workers from leaving early or stealing from the firm, workers going off shift had to pass through doors where their bags would be searched. The exits of the 9th floor were simply impassable, some doors were locked, the fire escapes buckled due to the heat of the flames. The locked doors ensured that those trapped inside (those on the 10th floor were able to make it to the roof) had the choice of being burned to death or jumping out the windows to their deaths (the fireman's safety nets could not hold the weight of people from those heights, the fire ladders were too short to reach these floors and the water hoses could not reach a fire that high). These unnecessary and horrific deaths became a unifying theme for international women's day and its link to working class struggles for justice (
Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire).
Ballad of the Triangle Fire
By Ruth Rubin
In the heart of New York City, near Washington Square
In nineteen eleven, March winds were cold and bare.
A fire broke out in a building ten stories high,
And a hundred and forty-six young girls in those flames did die.
On the top floor of that building, ten stories in the air
These young girls were working in an old sweatshop there;
They were sewing shirtwaists for a very low wage.
So tired and pale and worn-out! They were at a tender age.
The sweatshop was a stuffy room with but a single door;
The windows they were gray with dust from off that dirty floor;
There were no comforts, no fresh air, no light to sew thereby,
And the girls, they toiled from early morn till darkness filled the sky.
Then on that fateful day - dear God, most terrible of days!
When that fire broke out, it grew into a mighty blaze.
In that firetrap way up there with but a single door,
So many innocent working girls burned, to live no more!
A hundred thousand mourners, they followed those sad biers.
The streets were filled with people weeping bitter tears.
Poets, writers everywhere described that awful pyre,
When those young girls were trapped to die in the Triangle Fire.
© 1968 Ruth Rubin
From the Sing Along Songbook, 1993 UCLEA NE Summer Institute for Union Women, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 1993. (triangle fire ballad)"
Cornell University's International Labour Relations Department has a 100 year tribute to the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory Fire. This is a fantastic resource and includes a history of the struggles for wages, better working conditions, limits to working hours of the early 20th century in the garment district, eyewitness accounts of survivors, photos of the fire, its aftermath and the funerals (the 100,000 mourners referred to above in the ballad). There are also transcripts of the trial against the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company (Blanck and Harris) that were found innocent of second-degree manslaughter as they denied knowledge that the doors were locked. In 1914, they finally settled a civil suit paying $75 per victim (
cornell triangle fire)
A bit more History
The question arises why March 8th? Earlier celebrations occurred on the last Sunday in February in the US and in other countries, some were held later in March, why was March 8th finally the day chosen?
This time we need to go to 1917 and to Russia. With horrible losses in World War I, Russian women called a strike for "Bread and Peace" to be held on the last Sunday in February. Irrespective of opposition from political leaders whom were uncertain about the timing, women went on strike. 4 days later, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and women were granted the right to vote by the Provisional government (
http://www.un.org/...): this day was the 8th of March, 1917.
So I ask you to give yellow flowers to women (those you know and those you meet), raise a glass to all the struggles lost and won, to the struggles that we still are fighting and to those that have not yet begun! Happy International Women's day!