My struggle with International Women's Day

Every year on March 8th we celebrate International Women's Day. Politicians offer their support; businesses jump on the bandwagon; small triumphs are bigged up; injustices have an all-too-brief light shone on them. Why? It sounds trite to say that I want every day to be international women's day. That I want to live in a world where the whole concept is irrelevant because the small triumphs are just daily realities and the injustices are the thing of the past. But I don't like women only shortlists and quotas. I don't like female artist only exhibitions. I don't want women's rights ghettoised into a day any more than I want their history restricted to a special 'Women's History Month' as if somehow we are not part of history in general. I want every day to be international women's day - without the capitals and the brouhaha - because in reality that's what life is. Women doing their best, carrying on, facing injustice, achieving small triumphs, taking a stand. Without making a fuss or needing a pat on the back. 

IWD started quietly. It also, don't mention it too loudly, was originally largely a socialist concept, with early versions commemorating the New York garment workers' strike, the Paris Commune, the 1917 Bread and Peace marches in Russia and, of course, demands for suffrage. The modern incarnation really developed out of second-wave feminist protests in the 1960s - again grass-roots, activist-based - before being formally adopted by the UN in 1977 with a resolution proclaiming an international day for women's rights and world peace.

Yet somehow we've got to here. 2023. IWD corporatised, politicised, themed, sponsored and generally debased. Internationalwomensday.com and their commercial partner John Deere. Any and every institution obliged to parade its support, social media awash with hashtags and likes. Meanwhile out in the real world we have women dying for basic rights: the last twelve months have been truly, shockingly horrific in Afghanistan, in Iran, in Ukraine. We've had anti-abortion legislation in the US and elsewhere. We've had examples of ingrained sexism within institutions like the police and fire brigade in this country. 

I accept the argument that IWD creates a focus, an agenda and a dynamic that can potentially highlight all the genuine, on the ground activism which actually drives change. But it's a dangerous tightrope to walk between that and a lot of manufactured sound and fury which signifies nothing. We're at a tipping point. Just as Poppy Day has become less about raising money for veterans and remembering the horrors of war and more of an excuse to 'call-out' anyone unfortunate enough not to be seen wearing some kind of ever more extravagant badge. Just as whether or not you fly the Rainbow flag has become a culture war issue which has very little to do with the reality of LGBTQ+ rights. Just as clapping for the NHS became politically compulsory during COVID but has made no difference to long term government attitudes to health service funding and pay. And worse of all, just as climate change has been greenwashed from a generational emergency into a minor, manageable problem by multinational vested interests. So too is IWD in danger of becoming a meaningless 'celebration' of sisterhood, a patronising 'we're all behind you, girls!'

The Secretary General of the UN recently claimed, with impeccable timing, that it would take 300 years to get gender equality. So, I'm not likely to see it. It's been well over a hundred years since women first started mobilising themselves on International Women's Day. Change has happened. More change is needed. Let's remember and celebrate everyone out there who is fighting, campaigning, writing, marching, arguing, and even putting their lives on the line to make that change happen. But let's do it everyday. Because they are.

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