4 international womens day www.solfed.org.uk Catalyst #29 5 Resisting, questioning, creating... 101 years of International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day (IWD) and Switzerland, where more than one is marked each year on the 8th of million women and men attended rallies The economy of making women care March, to signify the economic, and demonstrations. In Vienna, 20,000 The supposed ‘solution’ to the that in industrialised countries More importantly, these parameters cultural and political achievements women demonstrated, carrying banners economic crisis is premised full-time working women spend allow “the economy” to be defined an average of 23 hours per week in quite apart from many activities of women and more importantly, all honouring the martyrs of the Paris on cutting costs. It is therefore Commune. They demanded voting rights, unpaid housework and between 6 relevant to our lives, such as childcare. important to highlight the that still has to be achieved in the the right to to hold public office, the eight- and 12 hours in unpaid childcare, This tends to assign responsibilities this latter being between 2 to 4 times and value through constructed struggle for women's liberation. 2012 hour day, an end to discrimination on the role that women’s subordinate more than what men do.1 In the UK, social hierarchies, ultimately giving is the 101st anniversary of the day. job, the reduction of grocery costs, the position in the economy plays, as this will allow - and is allowing this can be up to 60% of the total privileges and control to heterosexual legalisation of abortion and the prevention activities women do.2 white rich men. International Women’s Day first emerged of the approaching First World War. - for many activities to continue Looking at the economy of care from the women’s labour movement at the In Petrograd in Russia on International on an unpaid basis. Working women spend brings up that ‘caring’ is not so much turn of the twentieth century, in North Women’s Day, March 1917, the working an average of 23 hours per something that women do because America and Europe. In 1908, in the United women of the city launched the February History has already shown how week in unpaid housework they are born to do so, but because women are used differently at different of very precise and at times coercive States of America, a three month strike of revolution. Despite being urged by the and between 6 and 12 hours in almost 30,000 garment workers, composing Bolshevik leaders not to strike, on March economic junctures. Whereas the war economic measures. It is on these economy of the 1920s and 1930s put unpaid childcare. bases that our feminism needs not mainly of migrant women, almost shut 8 the women of Petrograd stormed the women to work, it sacked them in the “ to aspire to the privileges men have down the garment industry and won most streets, angrily denouncing the Tsar 1940s to give their posts to the soldiers According to the latest data on but to attack and subvert the social of the workers’ demands, including the and protesting food prices and bread coming home from the front. The occupation by gender in the UK 69.4% hierarchies that sustain capitalism. right to organise, to bargain collectively, shortages. Food riots, political strikes and ‘marriage bar’, that is, the prohibition of the cleaners, 81.5% of the social and improved wages and working demonstrations followed and within a of married women to enter certain workers, and 87.7% of the nurses, are 1. Aguiar, Mark and Erik Hurst. conditions. On the 8th of March, 15,000 week the Tsar had abdicated. better-qualified professions, which was women. But women only make up 2007. ‘‘Measuring Trends in Leisure: ”3 of the women workers marched through International Women’s Day was in place in some industries until the 6.8% of engineering professionals. The Allocation of Time over Five New York to protest child labour, sweatshop adopted as an official holiday in Russia 1960s, kept women in low paid jobs. Women overall earn about £90 less Decades.’’ Quarterly Journal of working conditions, and to demand the vote after the revolution and as a result was According to Maria Angeles Durán, per week than men. As such, women Economics 122(3): 969–1006. 2/3 of the total working hours today do the bulk of unpaid caring activities, 2. Office for National Statistics. for women. A year later in 1909 the first predominantly celebrated in communist are unpaid caring-type of activities - they represent the biggest percentage 2006. The Time Use Survey, 2005. national women’s day was observed when and socialist countries. It was celebrated done almost entirely by women. of care-type jobs, and of the lower- How We Spend our Time, London: the Socialist Party of America designated by the communists in China from 1922, In this process, men remain the paid professions. HMSO. Table 4.4 March 8th as “Women’s Day” in honour of and by Spanish communists from 1936. event all over the world. IWD in the UK is usually represented rightful workers and economy Keeping care as an unpaid or 3. Office for National Statistics. the garment workers. A few months after the first Women’s In 2007 International Women’s Day by many cultural and political events, managers whereas women’s poorly paid activity not only allows 2011. Emp16: All in Employment by In 1910 at the second International Liberation Movement Conference in sparked violence in Tehran, Iran when public ceremonies and conferences, involvement in the labour market is for huge savings to the economy, but status, occupation and sex. Quarter Conference of Working Women in Ruskin college in Oxford, on 6 March 1971 police attacked hundreds of men and alongside organised activity by the dependent on their caring-burdens also it creates an economy based on 2 (Apr - Jun). http://www.ons.gov.uk/ Copenhagen, German Socialists, inspired I nternational Wo me n’s D ay w a s c e leb r a t e d fo r women who were planning a rally. Last women’s movement, such as the Million and market needs. A 2007 research competition, the market and growth, ons/publications/re-reference-tables. by the actions of US women workers, the first time in the UK. 4,000 demonstrators year, an International Women’s Day Women Rise march, which have helped to paper by Aguiar and Hurst shows rather than on need and affection. html?edition=tcm%3A77-215723 proposed the establishment of a Women’s marched through London carrying on their demonstration was attacked in Cairo’s popularise the day. Day, international in character, to honour banners the four basic demands of the Tahrir Square. More than 200 men charged Though much of the turbulence the movement for women’s rights and womens liberation movement: for equal pay, the female demonstrators, attacking, that surrounded its early days is gone to build support for achieving universal equal education and job opportunities, free groping and sexually harassing them, as and despite its many ebbs and flows, suffrage for women. The motion was contraception and abortion on demand, and police and the military stood by. International women’s day continues passed unanimously by over 100 women free 24-hour nurseries. In 2005 the British Trades Union to be a day that helps to push women’s The 1976-78 Grunwick strike from 17 countries, representing unions, In 1977 the United Nations General Congress passed a resolution calling for issues onto the political agenda and The Grunwick dispute started in August 1976 in a However the union backed down after a threat of legal action in socialist parties, working women’s clubs, Assembly designated March 8 as the UN IWD to be designated a public holiday in many women continue to see IWD as an film processing plant in Willesden. It lasted for nearly two exchange for a pledge that the company would have to co-operate and on 18 March, 1911, International Day for Women’s Rights and International the United Kingdom, however it it is still important opportunity to review, reflect years, the SPG (riot police) were used for the first time in with the arbitration service ACAS, which it was refusing to do. an industrial dispute, and it involved mass pickets, over 500 The strike was backed both by the TUC officially- they Womens Day was marked for the first time, Peace and since then IWD has been not a official holiday in the UK. Despite and act on the political, economic and arrests, strikers run down by cars, hunger strikes outside received full strike pay from APEX- and by a massive rank and mainly in Austria, Denmark, Germany observed as a significant and popular its radical and socialist beginings, social struggles of women. Congress House, and ended in defeat. At Grunwick nearly file mobilisation for pickets, with busloads of Yorkshire miners all the workers were Asian women. In the 70s large numbers coming down to support them for days of action. However the of women from the subcontinent worked in manufacturing strikers were encouraged to look for a victory from the ACAS The Stuff Your and in the years before Grunwick there were big strikes in report and union recognition rather than stopping production the midlands involving mainly Asian women, such as the at the factory. The support they really needed was blocked, Sexist Boss… Imperial Typewriters dispute in Leicester in 1974. and when postal workers stopped deliveries again they were Conditions in the factory were awful, the workers were suspended by their employers and fined by their union. The doesn’t want you subjected to constant speedups, pay was very low, at £25 a week, ACAS report was not complied with by the employer and most and there was a colour bar in operation. The dispute was sparked of it was overturned in a further court ruling. to know when a worker was sacked and three others walked out in support. After this the strike moved slowly towards defeat, with This started a mass walkout and picketing, and the workers went some of the strikers holding a hunger strike outside The South London Solidarity Federation to the CAB to ask how to join a trade union and joined APEX. Congress House (TUC HQ) to protest the TUC withdrawing gender working group recently organised The strike was made official at the end of August and two days support. The strike ended in July 1978 after 693 days without a discussion and experience sharing later all 137 strikers were sacked by the company. In November the workers winning their demands. However, the dispute session on harassment and gender the postal workers union, at the time the UPW, voted to refuse to remains an inspiring battle by working class women and a discrimination in the workplace. We handle mail to Grunwick, which would have been very effective caution against the trade union bureaucracy’s complicity in will be producing an information sheet. as the company got sixty per cent of its work from mail order. the quelling of rank-and-file militancy. To know more about it or to contribute suggestions please contact us through [email protected]