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International Women"s Day
March 8
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International Women"s Day is an occasion marked by women"s groups around
the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is
designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all
continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic,
cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their
Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of
struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
International Women"s Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of
history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in
society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a
sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution,
Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles
to demand women"s suffrage.
The idea of an International Women"s Day first arose at the turn of the
century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and
turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies.
In the years before 1910, from the turn of the 20th century, women in
industrially developing countries were entering paid work in some numbers. Their
jobs were sex segregated, mainly in textiles, manufacturing and domestic
services where conditions were wretched and wages worse than depressed. Trade
unions were developing and industrial disputes broke out, including among
sections of non-unionised women workers. In Europe, the flames of revolution
were being kindled.
Many of the changes taking place in women"s lives pushed against the
political restrictions surrounding them. Throughout Europe, Britain, America
and, to a lesser extent, Australia, women from all social strata began to
campaign for the right to vote.
In the United States in 1903, women trade unionists and liberal
professional women who were also campaigning for women"s voting rights set up
the Women"s Trade Union League to help organise women in paid work around their
political and economic welfare. These were dismal and bitter years for many
women with terrible working conditions and home lives riven by poverty and often
violence.
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In 1908, on the last Sunday in February, socialist women in the United
States initiated the first Women"s Day when large demonstrations took place
calling for the vote and the political and economic rights of women. The
following year, 2,000 people attended a Women"s Day rally in Manhattan.
In 1910 Women"s Day was taken up by socialists and feminists throughout the
country. Later that year delegates went to the second International Conference
of Socialist Women in Copenhagen with the intention of proposing that Women"s
Day become an international event. The notion of international solidarity
between the exploited workers of the world had long been established as a
socialist principle, though largely an unrealised one. The idea of women
organising politically as women was much more controversial within the socialist
movement. At that time, however, the German Socialist Party had a strong
influence on the international socialist movement and that party had many
advocates for the rights of women, , including leaders such as Clara Zetkin.
Inspired by the actions of US women workers and their socialist sisters,
Clara Zetkin ;had already framed a proposal to put to the conference of
socialist women that women throughout the world should focus on a particular day
each year to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17
countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women"s clubs, and
including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted
Zetkin"s suggestion with unanimous approval and International Women"s Day was
the result.
That conference also reasserted the importance of women"s right to vote,
dissociated itself from voting systems based on property rights and called for
universal suffrage - the right to vote for all adult women and men The voice of
dissent on this decision came from the English group led by Mrs. Despard of the
Women"s Freedom League, a group actively engaged in the suffragette
movement.
Conference also called for maternity benefits which, despite an
intervention by Alexandra Kollontai on behalf of unmarried mothers, were to be
for married women only. It also decided to oppose night work as being
detrimental to the health of most working women, though Swedish and Danish
working women who were present asserted that night work was essential to their
livelihood. |
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发表于 2016-7-9 23:20:48