America Started International Women’s Day— So Why Don’t We Celebrate It?
We hate socialists more than we love women in America.
International Women’s Day began as a series of demonstrations promoting suffragist and social equality in New York City in 1909. Represented by thousands of American women at the time, the movement quickly gained momentum and caught on in Europe and then Russia.
Today, millions of women and men around the world celebrate International Women’s Day through protests, marches, and other events. But in the United States, the situation is starkly different. Your options for celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) are almost nonexistent.
Why do other countries today see million-strong demonstrations for women’s rights on IWD while most Americans have never heard of it?
A familiar cause of social inequality — politics.
A Celebration Everywhere But Here
Try searching for “International Women’s Day U.S.” in Google. The top news piece that comes up as a result is a CNN article entitled “What exactly is International Women’s Day?”
Meanwhile, over a million people have gathered to protest the unequal treatment of women in Chile today. In the United Kingdom, tens of thousands of women across the country have begun the Women’s Strike — encouraging women to give up all unpaid work for the day (paid, domestic, care, or other).
In Pakistan, thousands of women fought weeks of harassment to be able to attend today’s protest for women’s rights. In France, they have taken to the streets to stop femicide in the country and around the world.
In the U.S., top-listed IWD 2020 events include a few lectures on women’s issues in New York City and free visits to the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. In Chicago, women are invited to celebrate this historical day by attending a pub crawl. On the west coast, the only IWD event in Los Angeles today is the MashUp Contemporary Dance Festival panel and classes. Needless to say, the American options for celebrating International Women’s Day are almost nonexistent.
This situation begs the age-old question: Where are the women?
International Women’s Day Wasn’t Always This Way
The first gathering in 1909 that spurred the entire movement was originally organized by the Socialist Party of America. Deemed National Woman’s Day (NWD), several different groups focusing on women’s rights came together to make their voices heard. Many of these groups were part of the traditional left — largely unions or other labor organizations that supported worker’s rights over protections for business owners.
By 1910, Clara Zetkin — the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Germany — introduced the idea of an International Women’s Day to the attendees of the second International Conference of Working Women held in Copenhagen. Over 100 participants from labor organizations and socialist parties from 17 countries voted unanimously to approve the declaration as a statement of women’s solidarity in their fight for equality across the globe. International Women’s Day was born.
While the historical records are unclear about exactly how many more demonstrations were held in the U.S., we know that thousands took to the streets in 1911 through the campaign to protest the abhorrent conditions for women workers in the textile industry after the deadly NYC Triangle Fire. 1911 also marked the first celebration of International Women’s Day in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Russian women joined the movement in 1913.
Groups fighting for women’s rights around the world have united in solidarity of their efforts and struggles every year on March 8th ever since.
Except for in the U.S.
Capitalists Declare that Socialism is Unpatriotic
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, socialism didn’t conjure up the same fears that so many Americans associate with the ideology today. Both the leftist Populist Party and the Socialist Party gained influence during this period, two parties that put worker’s rights over business interests — to the great disdain of capitalistic business owners.
In a coordinated effort to make sure these leftist political parties did not continue to gain power and influence, the country’s largest corporations worked with government officials to turn socialism into something un-American. Otherwise apolitical corporate moguls didn’t have to do much convincing to join forces with the political establishment, who were also afraid of losing their place in the economic, and ultimately political, hierarchy. They worked to redefine what it meant to be American: patriotic, anti-socialist, and full believers in the fairness of capitalism.
They worked together to redefine what it meant to be American: patriotic, anti-socialist, and full believers in the fairness of capitalism.
They began by promoting a nationalist ideology throughout the country. Capitalists managed to make changes to the public education system that introduced patriotic texts like the Manual of Patriotism. Songs like America the Beautiful and Stars and Stripes were coopted as nationalistic anthems. Rich business owners made agreements with local law enforcement to brutally suppress worker uprisings, branding them too as extremely “unpatriotic”. World War I was the final nail in the coffin of socialism in America, finally giving capitalists an enemy face to put with the dreaded idea of socialism.
Movements like International Women’s Day were seen as too socialist and abandoned during this time. Although the U.N. recognised International Women’s Day across the globe in 1977. In 1994, the U.S. Congress failed to pass a law introduced by House Representative Maxine Waters to declare IWD a national holiday in 1994. No further action has been taken since.
We Hate Socialists More than We Love Women in America
International Women’s Day lost its place in American culture when we accepted the idea that socialism was anti-American. When the capitalistic powers-that-be decided that workers were gaining too much ground at the turn of the 20th century and that action needed to be taken to prevent a further shift in economic and political power. When we conflated women’s push for equal rights with an unpatriotic political ideology.
According to a variety of recent polls, a majority of Americans still hate or are made uncomfortable by the idea of socialism or a socialist president. International days of solidarity for women that are, for better or worse, rooted in socialism stand no chance in a society like this.
“International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity,” according to the official IWD website.
Although there is no mention of socialism in the mission or goals of IWD, its historic connections to labor organizing continue to prevent Americans from getting on board to prioritize women’s rights over century-old political differences. It’s a damning sentence. The message: Politics trump equality.
The message: Politics trump equality in America.
There are few causes that can inspire people around the world to come together to demonstrate, on the same day, for the same basic principles, for over a century. International Women’s Day is a testament to the common struggles facing women, no matter where they live. It signifies women’s solidarity, even across cultural, racial, and geographic borders. IWD is a show of women’s force — everywhere.
International Women’s Day is a show of women’s force — everywhere.
The United States’ failure to embrace the day and the women it represents is telling about our priorities: We hate socialists more than we love women.
Is there any other conclusion?
I look forward to the day I am wrong.
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