My mom is rather upset about the celebration of International Women’s Day.
She thinks the idea to celebrate Women’s Day is good, but that there’s a history behind March 8 that makes it particularly awkward for her as someone who grew up in Estonia when it was occupied by the Soviet Union.
International Women’s Day History
March 8 was proposed a long time ago by communists Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Alexandra Kollontai, largely to honor the role of the working women of St. Petersburg in the revolution. As noted on marxists.org…
But this is not a special day for women alone. The 8th of March is a historic and memorable day for the workers and peasants, for all the Russian workers and for the workers of the whole world. In 1917, on this day, the great February revolution broke out.[2] It was the working women of Petersburg who began this revolution; it was they who first decided to raise the banner of opposition to the Tsar and his associates. And so, working women’s day is a double celebration for us.
But if this is a general holiday for all the proletariat, why do we call it “Women’s Day”? Why then do we hold special celebrations and meetings aimed above all at the women workers and the peasant women? Doesn’t this jeopardize the unity and solidarity of the working class? To answer these questions, we have to look back and see how Women’s Day came about and for what purpose it was organized.
Lenin was the first world leader to declare this as a national holiday in 1922, calling it International Working Women’s Day (there weren’t women who didn’t work in the Soviet Union, although they didn’t really have a choice). In Soviet occupied countries, it was not taken seriously, and much mocked. It was also seen as a substitute for Mother’s Day, which has its own baggage.
Celebrating women’s day is a fine idea, but it should be done on a day that was not selected by communists, or legitimized by mass-murderers. It won’t necessarily be an easy process, since there are a lot of considerations. It would make a lot of sense to honor a celebrated woman, although most political and religious figures would lack universal appeal. Hildegard of Bingen is honored mainly by Catholics, and honoring a feminist who was important to one country or area of the world (IE- Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton) is fraught.
Murasaki Shikibu is considered one of the most important writers ever, but we have no idea what day she was born on. Marie Curie’s November 7 birthday might be too close to Veteran’s Day in the US.
Taking all of this into account, we should still be able to select a day that isn’t March 8th. Fortunately, left-wingers are currently more willing to admit the atrocities under Communism in the Soviet Union, so there should be bipartisan support for this in the United States.
So am I off here? Is it fine to continue this particular Soviet tradition? And does anyone have an alternative day to celebrate?
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