France, Organisation Communiste Libertarie (OCL) - Courant Alternatif, CA #238 - Should an origin to March 8? Breaking the myth to reclaim our struggles (fr)

The myth of origins has not spared this symbolic day that has become global due to its 
institutionalization in 1977 by the UN celebrates the struggles of women or a tribute to 
the woman worships the past or arises in this women's rights. ---- The March 8 ---- The 
first time we celebrated on March 8 as International Women's Day is Lenin we owe it was 
March 8, 1921. It enacts holiday in honor of women who are on strike in Petrograd and took 
to the streets on the last Sunday in February 1917 to demand bread and peace! It was on 
February 23 the Russian calendar which is equivalent to 8 March in the Gregorian calendar 
this day in 1917 marked the beginning of the Russian Revolution as four days later is the 
abdication of the Tsar and then the Provisional Government grants the right to vote to 
women. Before that day in 1921, the idea of a Women's Day has been issued but not on the 
date of March 8.

In fact, the first "International Women's Day" was celebrated May 3, 1908, in Chicago. 
Then, in 1909 the American socialist women decide a national day for equal civil rights to 
organize each year on the last Sunday in February. When the Second International 
Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen in 1910 decided to celebrate an annual 
International Women's Day, at the initiative of Clara Zetkin, the proposed date is during 
the holidays of May. International Women's Day is celebrated the following year, March 19, 
1911 to claim the right of women to vote, the right to work and end discrimination in the 
workplace. More than one million people participate in Germany, Austria, Denmark and 
Switzerland. This is the same year, March 25, 1911, that takes place Shirtwaist tragedy in 
New York, where 140 workers died in a fire in the textile workshop where working a 
majority of immigrants from Italy and Europe East, mostly young people 16 to 30 years. 
This event linked to the exploitation of women workers will be commemorated on the 
occasion of International Women's day and helps make the connection between the struggle 
of women and the labor movement. Except in Paris, where there was no manifestation before 
1914 and in Europe in 1913 and 1914, women hold rallies against the war, as part of the 
peace movement, in late February or early March. In London, March 10, 1914, Mary 
Richardson slashed with knife painting by Velasquez, Venus in the mirror, and says he 
wants "to destroy the portrait of Venus, the most beautiful woman in mythological history 
to protest against the government that destroys Miss Pankhurst, the most beautiful 
character in modern history."

She expresses its support for Emmeline Pankhurst, British politician feminist, fighting 
for the right of women to vote who was arrested five times between 1912 and 1917 and 
released in 1920 because of the many events it organizes as if chained to lampposts , 
cause fires in buildings, to the hunger strike or even cut the telegraph son. This gesture 
of solidarity causes indignation at the National Gallery, which closes after this outrage, 
calling suffragette Mary Richardson, notorious militant activist who mutilated "the table 
with a small grinder long and sharp blade similar to instruments used by butchers, and 
within seconds, she inflicted injuries as serious qu'irr?parables. " International Women's 
Day was celebrated for the first time in France, 9 March 1914 at a course organized by the 
Socialist Group Of Women (GDFS) meeting with Madeleine Pelletier said: "I fear that the 
group of socialist women is the small class of the Socialist Party and that it ignores 
feminism to please the men of the party. "Meanwhile, Alexandra Kollontai, a Russian exile 
in Norway, organizes Christiana near Oslo, a demonstration of women against war.

March 8 will be many successive requests (or orders) women to protest against the war in 
Morocco and Syria to support the Spanish Republic, the Italian anti-fascist movements - 
but little will be said about their own struggles . Thus, in 1925, called the women to 
fight against colonialism and in 1932/1933 to revolt against fascism, or they invite to 
envy the fate of Soviet women liberated by the October Revolution. In 1924, the Women's 
Day is celebrated in China. In 1946, the countries of the East celebrate the day of
women's rights.

March 8, 1947, Blum welcomes the important role of women in the Resistance.

After the war, from 1946, more mothers that we address this appeal as of March 8, 1949, in 
L'Humanite "the Mothers, workers, defend peace is demanding that everything be done to 
improve the lot of families and workers. " On 8 March 1948, 100,000 women marched in 
Paris, the Republic of the statue of Joan of Arc, Place des Pyramides (30000 Marseille, 
12000 Lille, Lyon 5000) answering the call of the PC CGT and to encourage them to file 
"protest notebooks with employers and government."

So with time is March 8 which is held as an international day of women's rights but it is 
on the original reference that date that the myth will be built.


March 8, 1857, the development of a myth


"These are the Americans who started, we read in Antoinette (No. 1, March 1964), it was 
March 8, 1857 to demand the 10-hour day, they took to the streets of New York." In fact 
the legend of March 8, 1857 March 5, 1955 appears in Humanity. "International Women's Day 
continues the tradition of struggle of women garment workers in New York in 1857, March 8, 
manifested for the abolition of poor working conditions, the 10-hour day, the recognition 
of the equality of women's work. This event produced a great impression and was repeated 
in 1909, again by the women of New York. " The legend is enriched by details as and its 
distribution: "It was so once in New York, in 1857, workers' clothing. They worked ten 
hours a day in appalling conditions for starvation wages. Their anger, their misery, was 
born a demonstration "in L'Humanit?-Sunday March 13, 1955" The women garment workers (...) 
went marching in the streets, like men, carrying placards and banners ". The newspaper 
adds Antoinette in March 1968: "This is the 8 mars1857 and workers already on strike 
demanding the reduction of working time, wage increases and equal for equal work, 
nurseries and respect for their dignity. The police charged that day a long procession 
miserably dressed. " And nothing stops the development of the myth of origins, in March 
1975, also set the P?troleuses originally from March 8 to March 8, 1857, and state that it 
is "one of the first strikes women between the textile workers the NYPD, charging, shoots 
and kills. "

The problem is that there is no trace of this event whatsoever in American sources when 
newspapers in March 1857 do not mention any demonstration or strike women on March 8, nor 
in the stories of the labor movement the United States or in the stories of feminism, it 
is not referenced by the ruling of the international socialist women's movement, however, 
the origin of this celebration. Can not see it appear in the French Communist press in the 
1950s. The idea would be Madeleine Colin, feminist and confederal secretary of the CGT, 
creating this symbolic originally wanted away from Soviet history and make it politically 
correct with an event that qualifications: international, prior to Bolshevism, based on a 
spontaneous struggle and not a decision of the Congress of Copenhagen. To finish 
demolishing the myth, it is also clear that this is not the first manifestation of women 
workers. We can cite among other strikes or demonstrations in December 1828 those mills 
Cochech Mill, seamstresses in New York in 1834, the women's demonstration during the Joint 
strike in the shoe industry in Lynn (Mass.) 7 March 1880 and many others in the world.


Feminist struggle is not in the 70s


So, regardless of the myth remains the struggle of women brought from the Revolution by 
Olympe de Gouges raises the issue of equality between men and women. It will be followed 
by Flora Tristan, Louise Michel, Andr? L?o and Hubertine Auclert, and many others for a 
nearly a century from 1789 to 1879. This short reminder to locate feminist struggle has 
also experienced turbulent times at the time of those that called manifesting with energy 
suffragettes demanding the right to vote to be given to women in New Zealand in 1893 
before those France in 1944!

In the 1970s, the feminist movement will be March 8, the symbol of the struggle against 
patriarchy. 1975 was declared the "International Year of the Woman" and it is on this 
occasion that the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on March 8. 
Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a 
United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of 
the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. 
Here we find the name in French "LA Woman" in all titles while in English means 
International Women's Day International Women's Day. This institutional recovery will be 
denounced by the MLF (Mouvement de Liberation of Women) as on the bottom of 
instrumentalisation of the struggles on the grammatical form, any essentialist. Despite 
this, the French socialist government follows exactly the same pattern and renames 8 March 
"Women's Day" in 1982. And since then has been widely disseminated in the public the idea 
that this day allows women "not to do the dishes ... A sort of May 1 for unpaid workers 
... And the fight went through the holes in the sink "as the say so Dolls in Pants Strasbourg.

Other 8 March saw women demonstrate to demand the opportunity to travel the night quietly, 
rename the streets of the city in the feminizing, solidarity with all women in the world 
who suffer oppression, claiming their legitimate rights of be treated as equals with men 
choose their sexuality, to be free of his own life. And today it is urgent to respond to 
the generalized regression of women's rights here in Europe, the rise of reactionary 
ideologies that involve the achievements of feminist struggles. A March 8 will not be enough!

Chantal, OCL - Toulouse

Sources:

Liliane Kandel and Fran?oise Picq The myth of origins, about the International Women's Day 
in The Journal of Opposite, No. 12, Fall 1982 http://sisyphe.org/article.php3?id_... -

Micheline Dumont, historian and Professor Emeritus, University of Sherbrooke, March 5, 2012

Gazette des Femmes, The true origin of the March 8, Jos?e Bernard and Francoise Gagnon, 
March 1, 2008 ... http://www.journeedelafemme.com/his

International Women's Day, in pursuit of a myth, Fran?oise Picq in Work, Gender and
Society No. 3, March 2000.

Jos? Contreras, Anny Desreumaux Christine Faur?, Liliane Kandel, Fran?oise Picq A 
commemoration may hide another: about the International Women's Day. They history, No. 0, 
8 March 1977.