It can be hard to be a feminist in the 21st century. We face the myth that women are liberated and that we no longer need to fight. We are often asked questions like, "Why do you bother? Women were liberated in the '60s when they all burnt their bras and you're just a bunch of whiners!" Many have bought the propaganda that women are now liberated and happy.
Perhaps they've seen a Hollywood flick in which a woman has "slept her way to the top" and believe that it's somehow easier for women because they can resort to using their sex appeal. Maybe they've read in a magazine that access to shitloads of cosmetics, even cosmetic surgery, ensure women can be "liberated" from the stigma associated with being fat or ugly.
But no amount of propaganda can obscure the facts: things are getting worse for most women. In the last 20 years, the percentage of women in full-time work has fallen. But women still have less spare time than men, spending an average of four hours a day on housework and childcare. Those in the workforce earn just over two-thirds of the male wage. Women are constantly oppressed by the mainstream media's image of how they should look. Most girls have been on a diet by the time they are 10.
The newspapers tell us that more women in parliament will improve this (even regardless of whether these women fight for women's rights). They use such women as proof that we can "make it". Only famous people and politicians can liberate us "ordinary" women, apparently.
That's exactly the reason why, as socialists, we in Resistance are committed to building International Women's Day marches: because, in reality, the only ones who can liberate "ordinary" women are those women themselves.
International Women's Day began almost a century ago, on February 28, 1907 when women throughout the US marched to demand political rights for working women. The day of protest was organised by socialists, who called it Women's Day.
Two years later in the "great uprising", 30,000 garment workers (most of them women) went on strike to protest the sacking of female unionists. They demanded the right to organise and better wages and conditions. After three months they won some of their demands.
Inspired by this example women from 17 countries gathered in Copenhagen in 1910 for the second International Conference of Socialist Women. At this conference German socialist Clara Zetkin proposed International Working Women's Day. Zetkin developed a socialist women's program and practice in the German Socialist Party which became a model used by socialist parties around the world and provided the political basis of the first IWD.
The conference decided to organise IWD on March 19 around the slogan, "The vote for women will unite our strength in the struggle for socialism".
While March 19 was chosen for its significance to the German working-class movement, the date was changed to March 8 in 1915, recognising that while the struggle for women's liberation was connected to the working-class struggle, it had broader goals including the right to childcare and reproductive control.
IWD continues, 86 years later, to be organised in all parts of the world on March 8 and is an important part of the struggle for women's liberation.
During the "second wave" of feminism in the 1960s and '70s, Australian IWD marches demanded the right to equal pay, to free safe and accesible abortion, and to 24 hour childcare. These marches were often organised by socialist women, who had radicalised in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and they had a strong internationalist theme. During this period women won many of these demands.
While not all IWD marches have had such an immediate impact, each and every IWD march is a victory. Every march organises women to fight for their liberation, and helps to push back the myths that are created to keep women oppressed.
The problems we face today are not so different from the early years of IWD. In 1907 I'm sure many people asked, "What are these women protesting for, surely they trust their husbands to vote for them". Socialists at the time realised they had fight the myth that women were mentally inferior to men. And women in the '60s had to fight the perception that women belong in the kitchen, under the thumb of their husbands.
Today IWD is more relevant than ever. Years of government co-option of "feminist" leaders, union inaction and a propaganda onslaught have severely weakened the women's liberation movement. The government has been able to use this weakness to slash women's services and affirmative action programs.
IWD marches provide one of the few opportunities to counter the myth that women are already 'liberated'.
They also help expose the plight of most of the world's women — those living in the Third World. These women are suffering increased poverty in the era of the World Bank and the IMF, of escalating Third World debt and structural adjustment programs.
Since the protests against the World Economic Forum in September last year, hundreds of people have gotten involved in fighting against the power of big corporations. We need to explain how this affects women all over the globe.
The theme proposed by Resistance for this year's IWD marches reflects these struggles, "Woman fighting for global justice — against corporate tyranny", and has been adopted by many organising collectives.
Socialist women throughout the world have played a leading role in IWD since 1907. This is because we understand that the liberation of women is connected to the liberation of all humanity. That's why we will continue to build and participate in IWD collectives and marches.
BY MICHELLE BREAR
[Michelle Brear is a member of Resistance and the Sydney West IWD collective.]