Was there ever a year when daylight savings, a sure sign that spring is just
around the corner, was more eagerly anticipated and welcomed? We are all certain
to be aware that today marks that event.
What many of us may not have
read about is that this past Friday was International Women’s Day. While the day
has been observed since the early 1900s, a time of turbulence in the
industrialized world when it was known as International Working Women’s Day, it
wasn’t until 1975 that the United Nations gave official sanction to the
holiday.
Following a decision reached in Copenhagen in 1911, the IWD was
honored for the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, with
more than 1 million men and women campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote
and hold public office.
Less than a week later, on March 25, the tragic
Triangle Factory Fire in New York City, which took the lives of more than 140
immigrant working women, called attention to conditions in the United States.
On this same day in 1917, Russian women began a strike for “bread and peace.”
A latter-day Soviet poster dedicated the 8th of March holiday, calling it, “The
day of the rebellion of working women against kitchen slavery.” From the time of
its birth in the socialist movement, IWD has grown to become a global day of
recognition and celebration and is an official holiday in many countries,
including Great Britain.
Some countries treat it almost like an
equivalent of Mother’s Day. In Italy and Russia, yellow mimosas and chocolates
are popular gifts.
This year, the theme is “A Promise is a Promise ...
Time for Action to End Violence Against Women.” Some 603 million women live in
countries where domestic violence is not yet considered a crime. Sixty-million
girls worldwide are child brides, married before the age of 18, and 50 percent
of sexual assaults are committed against girls under the age of 16.
Our
own country has been dealing with sexual crimes against women in the military,
and, of course, women are still paid less than men for the same work in many
areas.
In Bangladesh in 2002, there were more than 500 recorded acid
attacks on women. A huge men-only demonstration in Dhaka on IWD, which has been
regularly repeated, resulted in fewer than 100 attacks last year. As Gloria
Steinem so eloquently put it, “The story of women’s struggle for equality
belongs to no single feminist, nor to any one organization, but to the
collective efforts of all who care about human rights.”
A Join Me on the
Bridge campaign started in 2010 when women from the Congo and Rwanda joined
together on the bridge connecting the two countries, showing they could build
the bridge for peace.
P.S. International Men’s Day is Nov. 19.
Contact Jean Cherni, certified senior adviser for Senior Living Solutions and Pearce Plus, a helpful, full-service program for seniors contemplating a move, at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at 101 Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.
