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100 Years of International Womens Day: Russia was the Pioneer of Womens Rights
07.03.2010 16:08
Monday March 8 is the 100th anniversary of International Womens Day, a national holiday in Russia (since 1965) to
commemorate the remarkable achievements of women in guaranteeing victories for human rights despite continued
constraints. International Womens Day serves as a focal point for us to document the present and future challenges
facing women and to pool resources to implement womens rights on a global scale. Amazing it is that such a Day
should still be necessary.
The beating was getting more and more severe. In the beginning it was confined to the house. Gradually he stopped
caring. He slapped me in front of others and continued to threaten me. Every time he beat me it was as if he was
trying to test my endurance, to see how much I could take. (1)
History of International Womens Day
International Womens Day started in the United States of America, launched by a declaration of the Socialist Party of America on February 28th, 1909
using as a basis the need to guarantee womens rights in an increasingly industrialized society and was taken up by the international community at the
first International Womens Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1910. The horrific and inhumane conditions at the New York Triangle Shirtwaist
factory which caused the deaths of 140 garment workers (mostly women) in 1911 provided an added impetus at a time when women were pressing for
the right to vote and demonstrations in Russia prior to the 1917 Revolution were the first signs of womens emancipation in that country, culminating in
the declaration by Lenin of a Womens Day on March 8th; in 1965 it was declared a public holiday by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.
Emotional abuse is worse. You can become insane when you are constantly humiliated and told that you are worthless, you are nothing (2)
Why March 8th?
Women had been demonstrating for their rights since pre-Classical times (e.g. the sexual strike called by Lysistrata in Ancient Greece, the March on
Versailles by Parisian woman calling for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity in the 1790s). Copenhagen had chosen 19
th
March for the celebration of an
International Womens Day but in 1913, Russian women chose the last Sunday in February (following the Declaration by the Socialist Party of America
in 1909) as the date for their International Womens Day to call for peace on the eve of the First World War. As Springtime and local customs to give
the first flowers to women combined, the end of Febuary/beginning of March began to be the time of year observed by the feminist movements, until in
1917, Russian women called a strike on the last Sunday of February to protest against the War (23d February) in the Julian Calendar; 8th March in the
Gregorian.
My husband slaps me, has sex with me against my will and I have to conform (3)
Continuing the impetus
After having been considered too stupid to have the right to vote, over the last century, women stood up for their rights and won victories, culminating
in the right to vote and in gaining equal rights across a wide spectrum of professional activities.
I take a blanket and I spend the night with my children out in the cold because he is hitting me too much and I have to take the kids to stop him hitting
them too (4)
However, so much more needs to be done and it is a telling statement that after 100 years, we are still faced by glaring and shocking statistics regarding
women, such as:
Women own one per cent of the worlds property, earn 10% of the worlds income, yet perform 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food;
Women have to work longer hours than men to receive the same income;
Women are concentrated in insecure jobs in the informal sector and are far more vulnerable to unemployment;
Unacceptable statistics
How can we state that we have reached a collective state of civilization when we are confronted by statistics such as these?
A WHO study conducted in ten countries discovered that between 15 and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence perpetrated by a husband
or partner;
For the 15-44 age group, violence causes more victims among women than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war;
Up to 40% of women in some countries stated that their first sexual encounter was not consensual;
There are 5,000 honour killings worldwide per year;
20% of women worldwide experience sexual abuse as children;
In South Africa, one woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner; in India 22 women are murdered each day in dowry-related incidents, often
burnt alive;
80% of the worlds victims of human trafficking are women;
100 to 140 million girls have been the victims of Female Genital Mutilation, 3 million girls per year are subjected to this horrific act of intrusion;
There are 60 million girls per year forced into marriage as child brides;
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Worldwide, 25% of pregnant women are subjected to physical or sexual abuse (including being punched or kicked in the abdomen);
40 to 50% of women in the EU have experiences sexual harassment at work;
83% of girls in the USA experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools (5)
Conclusion
If we state that womens rights have been reached and ignore the facts presented above (but a minuscule sample of the horrific register of sexist abuse)
then we are admitting that we live in an unjust, feeble and impotent global society which in over one hundred years of concerted efforts to set womens
rights on an equal footing with those of men has still not managed to create universal and global structures.
While one of the biological functions of the woman is to carry the child through pregnancy (if she so wishes), how can we say that we have reached any
pinnacle of success if the right to employment is in many cases subjected to the precept that the woman will not have children and when hardly any
societies worldwide have created the financial mechanisms for women to have full professional lives while performing their chosen roles as wives and
mothers, quite apart from guaranteeing their right to inviolability of their physical integrity?
UNO: Thai University Graduate
UNO: Woman interviewed in Serbia/Montenegro
UNO: Woman interviewed in Bangladesh
UNO: Woman interviewed in Peru
American Association of University Women. 2001. Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing, and Sexual Harassment in School.
Lisa KARPOVA
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
PRAVDA.Ru
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
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