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| Socialist
Party
USA:
International Women's Day 2010 |
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International Women's Day 1910-2010:
A Century of Empowerment,
Resistance, Celebration
From the Women’s Commission of the
Socialist Party USA, February
2010
About IWD History
1909: The Woman's
National Committee of the Socialist Party calls for a national day of
protest on the last Sunday of February to support women’s suffrage in
the context of the broader movement for women's rights, workers'
rights, and social justice.
1910: The Women's
Congress of the Socialist International meets in August in Copenhagen
and approves the call for an international day of protest. The specific
date is left open to the participants in each country.
1913: Russian
socialists
begin celebrating International Women's Day. Their intention is to
organize rallies for the same day as that set in the United States, but
since the Julian calendar lags several days behind the Western
calendar, the events take place in early March by our reckoning.
1917: The date of
March
8 for International Women's Day gets established when tens of thousands
of women, demonstrating on that day in Petrograd, the capital of
Russia, spark a revolution that topples three centuries of czarist
autocracy.
1979: In Tehran,
women's
rights activists celebrate International Women's Day by taking to the
streets to demand equality for women and to protest the reactionary
order of the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for all Iranian women to wear
the veil.
About IWD and
Peace
In August 1914,
World
War I erupted, leading to the slaughter of millions. International
Women’s Day became a focal point for those calling for an immediate end
to the war. On February 23, 1917, (March 8 on the new calendar), tens
of thousands of Russian women celebrated International Women’s Day by
surging onto the streets of Petrograd demanding peace. These militant
protests led to the downfall of the czar and, soon afterward, Russia’s
decision to leave the war.
Senseless war
continues.
Once again we are told that military action in Iraq and Afghanistan is
intended to promote freedom and peace, and once again we know the real
reasons are about power and wealth. As we demonstrate our opposition to
war and occupation this and every International Women’s Day, we
commemorate the heroic actions of the women in Petrograd in 1917 and
the women in Tehran in 1979. In doing so, we maintain an unbroken link
in the struggle for peace, justice, and equality.
About IWD and Power
International
Women's
Day is about power: theirs and ours. Their power puts courts and
legislatures in charge of whether or not a woman can have an
abortion. Our power leaves this decision where it belongs: with
the woman herself. Their power dictates a profit-driven "managed
care" health care system, at the service of the health insurance
industry and transnational pharmaceutical companies. Our power
lies in grassroots organizing, for a national system of universal
health care under community control.
Their power rests
in
greedy corporations owned by an ultra-wealthy few that deplete the
world's resources and exploit its people. Our power depends on
building a mass movement for a new society rooted in cooperation,
equality, and workers' control.
Their power dumps
toxic
waste sites in our poorest communities-of-color, and builds dams that
destroy the livelihoods of countless farmers in our poorest
countries. Our power demands environmental justice. Their
power busts unions. Our power is at our worksites, talking with
our co-workers about the connections between workers' rights, human
rights, and women's rights. Their power is "welfare reform" that
pushes women into low-paid, dead-end jobs, and their children into
inadequate child care. Our power is the fight for the creation of
good jobs with pay equity and benefits, and the full funding of quality
child care, education, and social services.
Their power dupes
young
men and women into signing away their rights and often their lives for
the sake of U.S. imperialism. Our power gets the word out on
alternatives to "jobs" in the military and calls for huge cuts in the
military budget. Their power blames hunger and poverty on
over-population. Our power blames hunger and poverty on policies
and practices consciously designed to protect and enrich the global
capitalist class, in particular the agribusiness of the most developed
countries.
Their power gets
channeled through politicians whose primary allegiance is to the
economic requirements of global capitalism. Our power gets
exerted through political action completely independent of both
mainstream, capitalist parties. Their power resides in exploitation,
inequality, domination, violence, and deception. Our power resides in
cooperation, compassion, respectful communication, justice, and
collective action.
March 8th --
International Women's Day-- is our day. It's our opportunity to
come together to speak out for a world where democratic socialist
feminist values and programs enable people to live lives in ways they
never will be able to under capitalism and patriarchy.
That's the truth. That’s our power.
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