 |
| Suffragette Sylvia Pankhurst in action circa 1914. (All images: click to enlarge.) |
"After the Socialist Party of America organised a Women's Day on February 28, 1909 in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman's Conference suggested a Women's Day be held annually. After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted in 1975 by the United Nations.In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark. Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual Women's Day and was seconded by fellow socialist and later communist leader Clara Zetkin, supported by Käte Duncker, although no date was specified at that conference. Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights including suffrage for women. The following year on March 19, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations. In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honouring the martyrs of the Paris Commune."
- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for International Women's Day. Images: uppermost, Sylvia Pankhurst, activist and artist, and one of three daughters belonging to British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (her portrait - inset left - was painted by daughter Sylvia. Another example of S.P.'s artwork appears later in the post.) For more information about the Paris Commune,* see the foot-note section.Regarding the German poster (inset right, above, and found in the Wiki article) - which, by the way, was banned in Germany at the time - reads: "Give Us Women's Suffrage. Women's Day, March 8, 1914. Until now, prejudice and reactionary attitudes have denied full civic rights to women, who as, mothers, and citizens wholly fulfill their duty, who must pay their taxes to the state as well as the municipality. Fighting for this natural human right must be the firm, unwavering intention of every woman, every female worker. In this, no pause for rest, no respite is allowed. Come all, you women and girls, to the 9th public women's assembly on Sunday, March 8, 1914, at 3 pm."
"The most dramatic celebration of International Woman's Day was in 1917 in Russia. Led by feminist Alexandra Kollontai. Central to their protest in 1917 were complaints over deteriorating living conditions. Rents had more than doubled in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd, between 1905 and 1915. Food prices, particularly the cost of fIour and bread, rose between 80 and 120 percent in most European cities. The price per pound of rye bread, the staple of working-class diets in Petrograd, rose from three kopeks in 1913 to eighteen kopeks in 1916. Even soap rose 245 percent in 1917 Petrograd. Merchants speculated in grain, fuel, and meat, while factories closed for lack of energy to run the plants. Female and male wage earners who faced layoffs often went on strike. Between January and February 1917, more than half a million Russian workers, mostly in Petrograd, went out. Taking the occasion of International Woman's Day March 8th in the West, but February 23d on the Gregorian calendar), women led a demonstration from the factories and the breadlines." |
| Soviet Women's Day poster. |
"Women, in particular, were passionate in showing their dissatisfaction with the implemented rationing system, and the female workers marched to nearby factories to recruit over 50,000 workers for strike. Both men and women flooded the streets of Petrograd, demanding an end to Russian food shortages, the end of World War I and the end of autocracy. By the following day 24 February O.S. (March 9 N.S), nearly 200,000 protesters filled the streets, demanding the replacement of the Tsar with a more progressive political leader."
"Fast forward to March 8, 1908: 15,000 women marched in New York City for shorter work hours, better pay, voting rights, and an end to child labor. The slogan “Bread and Roses” emerged, with bread symbolizing economic security and roses for better living standards.
That May 1908, the Socialist Party of America declared that the last Sunday in February would be National Women’s Day."
- Photo (inset right) and text borrowed from the 2013 article: Where Did International Women’s Day Come From? by Stephanie Solis. The photograph depicts workers at the Reliance Waist Company and is credited to the Kheel Center, Cornell University.
"Due to its ties with socialism and communism, perhaps it’s not surprising that International Women’s Day didn’t catch on here in the United States the way it did in other countries. Recently, however, international digital marketing campaigns have brought the holiday (in its less-political form) further into American culture, complete with corporate support from PepsiCo and other brands. In 2017, the official theme for International Women’s Day is #BeBoldforChange, a campaign that calls on its supporters “to help forge a better working world—a more gender inclusive world.”- From the 2017 article The Surprising History of International Women’s Day via the History channel site. Regarding Women's Day 2018, well, the hashtag is: How will you continue to #PressforProgress? Inset left: McDonald's gives on a nod to IWD.
***
(Yes, it's finally Spring! And, yes, I'm finally back... after a weird, chaotic, confusing month. The operative question is: will I be spared a fourth "saison en enfer"? We shall see.Meanwhile, as we know, International Women's Day fell on March 8th... which, of course, was weeks ago. But, believe it or not, I began (diligently) constructing this post on that day. Alas, it had a lot of competition... I was already working on three others!
So, an entire month went by with utter silence on my part. Sorry, comrades. But, if it means anything, this post - for what it's worth - is finally presentable and, fingers crossed, 2 more should follow it fairly closely.)
Honestly, I generally ignored International Woman's Day in the past, figuring it was mostly a superficial, patronizing token of a holiday (as in, "here's a day for the little ladies" kind of thing). But, as it turns out, I was wrong. The day has a rich political history, and as we can see by the German poster from 1932 (inset right) - and the other posters featured above and below the jump - often a militant one!
Although the American Socialist Party organized a Woman's Day in 1909, it never was formally made a national, public holiday in the States. In the early days of the Soviet Union, however, March 8th was nationally celebrated as Working Women's Day and it was there that women initially made the greatest strides. In fact, in terms of woman's emancipation, the Soviet Union was way ahead of the game... at least for awhile. MessyNessy tells us (in an article featuring more Soviet Women's Day posters, including the one above):
"In the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution, the USSR had established equal pay for men and women, as well as the right to abortion in 1920– making it the first country to do so, more than 50 years before the United States.
Russian women were the first to count on 16 weeks paid maternity leave, as well as the same marriage rights as their husbands, a law against firing pregnant and postpartum women, and lest not forget access to specialist maternity clinics, counselling and childcare services.
Under Vladimir Lenin’s communist rule, the world’s first female ministerial positions were appointed. Homosexuality was legalised in 1917..."
Which was all well and good, but, unfortunately, as I alluded to in this post: while "Equal Rights" and "Win the Vote" make for good political slogans, political achievements are not necessarily carved in stone. And, as it happened, much of what woman (and homosexuals) had achieved in the early days of the USSR - assisted by the intervention of the communist women's group, the Zhenotdel - were conveniently "disappeared" by patriarchal legislation introduced in 1926 and again in 1936 under Stalin. Not surprisingly, the Zhenotdel organization was promptly dissolved. By 1967, Working Women's Day was no longer a Soviet holiday.
Inset right is a vintage Chinese poster honoring its working women. Once again, it was the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (in 1922) which initiated female emancipation in the Far East. Found here is this quote (Jack Beldon, 1945): "The revolt of women has shaken China to its very depths... In the women of China, the Communists possessed, almost ready-made, one of the greatest masses of disinherited human beings the world has ever seen. And because they found the keys to the heart of these women, they also found one of the keys to victory..."
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| The Bolshevik magazine Работница (Rabotnitsa) (The Woman Worker), 1914. |
"In the immediate aftermath of the 1917 Russian revolution, the USSR had established equal pay for men and women, as well as the right to abortion in 1920– making it the first country to do so, more than 50 years before the United States.
Russian women were the first to count on 16 weeks paid maternity leave, as well as the same marriage rights as their husbands, a law against firing pregnant and postpartum women, and lest not forget access to specialist maternity clinics, counselling and childcare services.
Under Vladimir Lenin’s communist rule, the world’s first female ministerial positions were appointed. Homosexuality was legalised in 1917..."
Which was all well and good, but, unfortunately, as I alluded to in this post: while "Equal Rights" and "Win the Vote" make for good political slogans, political achievements are not necessarily carved in stone. And, as it happened, much of what woman (and homosexuals) had achieved in the early days of the USSR - assisted by the intervention of the communist women's group, the Zhenotdel - were conveniently "disappeared" by patriarchal legislation introduced in 1926 and again in 1936 under Stalin. Not surprisingly, the Zhenotdel organization was promptly dissolved. By 1967, Working Women's Day was no longer a Soviet holiday.Inset right is a vintage Chinese poster honoring its working women. Once again, it was the fledgling Chinese Communist Party (in 1922) which initiated female emancipation in the Far East. Found here is this quote (Jack Beldon, 1945): "The revolt of women has shaken China to its very depths... In the women of China, the Communists possessed, almost ready-made, one of the greatest masses of disinherited human beings the world has ever seen. And because they found the keys to the heart of these women, they also found one of the keys to victory..."
Ultimately, one gets the impression that much of the early Soviet legislation - both before and after Stalin - was also either an attempt to repair a failing war-time economy or merely a propaganda campaign serving the Bolshevik agenda. Then again, depending upon the source of the information, one finds that women like Alexandra Kollontai** and Clara Zetkin (mentioned in the quote section) were actually anti-feminist. To add to the confusion, of the two women who founded the feminist magazine Rabotnitsa, one - a French expatriate named Inessa Armand - just happened to be the mistress of Vladimir Lenin... who was purportedly a misogynist who "found the sexual liberation of women repellent."
Moving right along, the Spanish Communist Party boasted its own contribution to feminist history: Dolores Ibarruri - the infamous "La Pasionaria" (the Passionflower) - one of the party's leaders and a heroine of the Spanish Civil War who, in 1936, led thousands of women to demonstrate in Madrid on International Woman's Day. Her mission was to urge her fellow citizens - both men and women - to fight against Franco’s Fascist forces.
Inset left is a statue of La Pasionaria (in Glasgow, Scotland) featuring one of her enduring slogans - first used by Mexican revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata - "better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees."
Above are two more posters featuring girls with guns; the first is from Ireland - specifically, the Sinn Féin Department of Women's Affairs - and reads: "International Women's Day,1982; This is not a man's war but a people's war, and very, very much suffering has been borne by the women, be they mothers, wives, political activists or Volunteers, and the men ought to remember that without the sacrifice of women there would be no struggle at all."
The second poster is from Palestine (1980) sponsored by the General Union of Palestinian Women. Both posters and a number of others can be found here. More GUPW posters can be found here where the poster (inset left) was found. Created for the United Nations Women's Conference in Nairobi (1985) it reads: "The emancipation of women is not an act of charity but a fundamental necessity of the revolution."
I suppose one could argue that many of the posters appearing here are better examples of pro-war propaganda than they are promotional material for women's emancipation... that is, unless you consider violence and aggression part of the equal rights package. But, then again, it's hard to argue with a desire for liberation and solidarity, especially when the fate of children are involved. Inset, right, a 1964 Chinese poster warning "Imperialists" to stay out of Africa. It's a powerful image and it's designers couldn't have chosen a more persuasive subject: a woman fiercely defending her child's life and welfare.
Meanwhile, here's another historical tidbit for you. Returning to that line from the Nairobi poster: The emancipation of women is not an act of charity but a fundamental necessity of the revolution. In reality, it isn't merely another slogan or empty threat. Just as the demonstrations of female workers in 1917 ignited the Russian Revolution, a similar phenomenon occurred in France over a hundred years earlier. That is, on October 5,1789, there was another Women's March... the Women's March on Versailles (below) considered to be one of the earliest, definitive events igniting the French Revolution!
Who knew? Not I. No more than I realized the British Suffragettes, led by the Pankhurst sisters (inset left, a poster by Sylvia), disrupted parliament, smashed windows, and set fires. Those ladies weren't kidding around either. But, there's always more to learn about the not-so-little ladies... not merely the first-wave feminists in this post, but those who preceded them, like the women of 18th century Versailles.
In other words, similar to the dearth of Superheroines we saw up till recent years, there was also a gaping hole in history where our real-life heroines should've been - women who were dismissed as anomalies by historians and damned to obscurity. The good news is that in the 21st century feminist historians are ferreting them out, and the better news is that, via the internet, we have easy access to them.
Before I close, here's a few more historic ladies I happened upon while researching this post:
Olympe de Gouges - French revolutionary feminist author and pamphleteer (1748-1793). She wrote: Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen) two years before her death (by guillotine). (Also here.)
Laskarina "Bouboulina" Pinotsis (1771-1825). She was a naval commander and a heroine of the Greek War of Independence. After her death, she was granted the honorary rank of Admiral of the Russian Navy.
Emilia Plater (1806-1831) was Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman and a revolutionary and was made a captain in the Polish insurgent forces during the Polish–Russian War (1830–31) or the November Uprising.
Gualberta Alaide Beccari - (1842-1906). Italian journalist, suffragist, pacifist and feminist. She founded the first Italian women's rights journal La Donna 1868-1891. (Also here & here in Italian).
_____________________________
* Regarding the Paris Commune (La Commune de Paris) via the Wiki entry:
"Some women organized a feminist movement, following earlier attempts in 1789 and 1848. Thus, Nathalie Lemel, a socialist bookbinder, and Élisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian exile and member of the Russian section of the First International, created the Women's Union for the Defense of Paris and Care of the Wounded (Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blesséson) 11 April 1871. The feminist writer André Léo, a friend of Paule Minck, was also active in the Women's Union. Believing that their struggle against patriarchy could only be pursued through a global struggle against capitalism, the association demanded gender and wage equality, the right of divorce for women, the right to secular education, and professional education for girls..."
** Regarding Alexandra Kollontai (found here):
"From 1923 on, Kollontai gave up her feminist concerns. For the rest of her career, she loyally served Stalin. She offered no objection to the patriarchal legislation of 1926 and the constitution of 1936, which deprived Soviet women of many of the gains they had achieved after the February and October Revolutions. She rewrote history and falsified her own role in her memoirs of the 1930's. She did not protest when her ex-husband, ex-lover and numerous old friends were massacred in the purges. The brutal collectivization of the peasants, which sent millions of them to Gulag camps, and the frame-ups of innumerable technical experts as foreign spies under Stalin was, of course, exactly what Kollontai had advocated back in 1921."
_____________________________
Update (3/28/18)
- Excerpt from The Hymn To Inanna by Enheduanna, 2300 BC, translated from the Sumerian by Jane Hirshfield and found in Women in Praise of the Sacred - 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield, 1994.
Enheduanna, the daughter of King Sargon (of Akkad), is the earliest known poet and among the earliest known women in history. In 2014, on Women's International Day, during a pre-launch event for the Niniti International Literature Festival in Erbil, Iraq, writer Rachel Holmes gave a TED Talk looking back on 5000 years of feminism, in which the ancient poet Enheduanna was highlighted.
Regarding the Sumerian goddess Inanna (daughter of the moon god Nanna): known in a later period as Ishtar*, she was a dual goddess of both love and war. Like Aphrodite, she was symbolized by the the planet Venus... also the dove, the lion and the 8-fold star.
Via the Wiki entry for Inanna (from which both images used here can be found): "Androgynous and hermaphroditic men were heavily involved in the cult of Inanna-Ishtar. During Sumerian times, a set of priests known as gala worked in Inanna's temples, where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in homosexual intercourse. During the Akkadian Period, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of Ishtar who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples... In one Akkadian hymn, Ishtar is described as transforming men into women."
* As is the goddess Astarte/Astaroth (found in this post).
More of Enheduanna's hymns can be found here (.pdf in English).
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| A Spanish Civil War poster featuring a female soldier. |
Moving right along, the Spanish Communist Party boasted its own contribution to feminist history: Dolores Ibarruri - the infamous "La Pasionaria" (the Passionflower) - one of the party's leaders and a heroine of the Spanish Civil War who, in 1936, led thousands of women to demonstrate in Madrid on International Woman's Day. Her mission was to urge her fellow citizens - both men and women - to fight against Franco’s Fascist forces.Inset left is a statue of La Pasionaria (in Glasgow, Scotland) featuring one of her enduring slogans - first used by Mexican revolutionary, Emiliano Zapata - "better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees."
Above are two more posters featuring girls with guns; the first is from Ireland - specifically, the Sinn Féin Department of Women's Affairs - and reads: "International Women's Day,1982; This is not a man's war but a people's war, and very, very much suffering has been borne by the women, be they mothers, wives, political activists or Volunteers, and the men ought to remember that without the sacrifice of women there would be no struggle at all."The second poster is from Palestine (1980) sponsored by the General Union of Palestinian Women. Both posters and a number of others can be found here. More GUPW posters can be found here where the poster (inset left) was found. Created for the United Nations Women's Conference in Nairobi (1985) it reads: "The emancipation of women is not an act of charity but a fundamental necessity of the revolution."
I suppose one could argue that many of the posters appearing here are better examples of pro-war propaganda than they are promotional material for women's emancipation... that is, unless you consider violence and aggression part of the equal rights package. But, then again, it's hard to argue with a desire for liberation and solidarity, especially when the fate of children are involved. Inset, right, a 1964 Chinese poster warning "Imperialists" to stay out of Africa. It's a powerful image and it's designers couldn't have chosen a more persuasive subject: a woman fiercely defending her child's life and welfare.Meanwhile, here's another historical tidbit for you. Returning to that line from the Nairobi poster: The emancipation of women is not an act of charity but a fundamental necessity of the revolution. In reality, it isn't merely another slogan or empty threat. Just as the demonstrations of female workers in 1917 ignited the Russian Revolution, a similar phenomenon occurred in France over a hundred years earlier. That is, on October 5,1789, there was another Women's March... the Women's March on Versailles (below) considered to be one of the earliest, definitive events igniting the French Revolution!
In other words, similar to the dearth of Superheroines we saw up till recent years, there was also a gaping hole in history where our real-life heroines should've been - women who were dismissed as anomalies by historians and damned to obscurity. The good news is that in the 21st century feminist historians are ferreting them out, and the better news is that, via the internet, we have easy access to them.
Before I close, here's a few more historic ladies I happened upon while researching this post:
Olympe de Gouges - French revolutionary feminist author and pamphleteer (1748-1793). She wrote: Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne (Declaration of the Rights of Women and of the Female Citizen) two years before her death (by guillotine). (Also here.)
Laskarina "Bouboulina" Pinotsis (1771-1825). She was a naval commander and a heroine of the Greek War of Independence. After her death, she was granted the honorary rank of Admiral of the Russian Navy.
Emilia Plater (1806-1831) was Polish-Lithuanian noblewoman and a revolutionary and was made a captain in the Polish insurgent forces during the Polish–Russian War (1830–31) or the November Uprising.
Gualberta Alaide Beccari - (1842-1906). Italian journalist, suffragist, pacifist and feminist. She founded the first Italian women's rights journal La Donna 1868-1891. (Also here & here in Italian).
_____________________________
* Regarding the Paris Commune (La Commune de Paris) via the Wiki entry:
"Some women organized a feminist movement, following earlier attempts in 1789 and 1848. Thus, Nathalie Lemel, a socialist bookbinder, and Élisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian exile and member of the Russian section of the First International, created the Women's Union for the Defense of Paris and Care of the Wounded (Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blesséson) 11 April 1871. The feminist writer André Léo, a friend of Paule Minck, was also active in the Women's Union. Believing that their struggle against patriarchy could only be pursued through a global struggle against capitalism, the association demanded gender and wage equality, the right of divorce for women, the right to secular education, and professional education for girls..."
** Regarding Alexandra Kollontai (found here):
"From 1923 on, Kollontai gave up her feminist concerns. For the rest of her career, she loyally served Stalin. She offered no objection to the patriarchal legislation of 1926 and the constitution of 1936, which deprived Soviet women of many of the gains they had achieved after the February and October Revolutions. She rewrote history and falsified her own role in her memoirs of the 1930's. She did not protest when her ex-husband, ex-lover and numerous old friends were massacred in the purges. The brutal collectivization of the peasants, which sent millions of them to Gulag camps, and the frame-ups of innumerable technical experts as foreign spies under Stalin was, of course, exactly what Kollontai had advocated back in 1921."
_____________________________
Update (3/28/18)
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| A Sumerian cylinder seal featuring the goddess Inanna. |
from: The Hymn To Inanna
"That you roar at the land,
Let it be known!
That you rain blows upon their heads,
Let it be known!
That you feast on corpses like a dog,
Let it be known!
That your glance is lifting toward them,
Let it be known!
That your glance is like striking lightning,
Let it be known!
That you are victorious,
Let it be known!
That this is not said of Nanna,
It is said of you.-
This is your greatness.
You alone are the High One.
__________
O my Lady,
Beloved of Heaven,
I have told your fury truly.
Now that her priestess
Has returned to her place,
Inanna's heart is restored.
The day is auspicious,
The priestess is clothed
in beautiful robes,
In womanly beauty,
As in the light of the rising moon.
The gods have appeared
In their rightful places,
The doorsill of Heaven cries "Hail"
Praise to the destroyer endowed with power,
To my Lady enfolded in beauty,
Praise to Inanna."
- Excerpt from The Hymn To Inanna by Enheduanna, 2300 BC, translated from the Sumerian by Jane Hirshfield and found in Women in Praise of the Sacred - 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, edited by Jane Hirshfield, 1994.
***
Enheduanna, the daughter of King Sargon (of Akkad), is the earliest known poet and among the earliest known women in history. In 2014, on Women's International Day, during a pre-launch event for the Niniti International Literature Festival in Erbil, Iraq, writer Rachel Holmes gave a TED Talk looking back on 5000 years of feminism, in which the ancient poet Enheduanna was highlighted.
Regarding the Sumerian goddess Inanna (daughter of the moon god Nanna): known in a later period as Ishtar*, she was a dual goddess of both love and war. Like Aphrodite, she was symbolized by the the planet Venus... also the dove, the lion and the 8-fold star.
 |
| A portion of a Temple of Inanna's from Uruk. |
* As is the goddess Astarte/Astaroth (found in this post).
More of Enheduanna's hymns can be found here (.pdf in English).
Welcome back with this intriguing post! This is a fascinating look at the movement which shouldn't even have to exist -- women have driven civilisation to it's current point (I suspect men would be happy to still be living in caves and hunting mammoths with rocks). But then that's just MY view.
ReplyDeleteThanks, BG. Meanwhile, I conveniently forgot to add that March is Women's History Month here in the States (if nowhere else). Which, personally, I find as insulting, patronizing and idiotic as I originally found "Women's Day." How about Neglected Half of Humanity's History month?
ReplyDeleteRe: Caves and rocks... And I suspect you're right... but, on the other hand, living in caves and hunting with rocks is not the worse-case scenario. In fact, it's looking pretty good to me right now. ;-)