March has always been a special month for me.
I was born on March 8th seventeen years ago. I always get twice the congratulatory wishes and often, twice the presents. As a young girl, unaware of the importance of this day, my birthday seemed much more eventful, with all the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old Sunčica who loves blowing out the candles on her cake. As the years go by and I become older and more mature, I witness many expressing their opinions. One different from my own is tied to this day.
Has March 8th, International Women’s Day, become a commercial gimmick, a synonym for red roses and carnations, expensive dinners and perfumes, or does it still symbolize the fight for equality and human rights?
Since I’ve entered the faze of celebrating my maturity, I’ve encountered a problem, because all restaurants and bars seem to be reserved for expensive dinners or extravagant concerts, the streets are always full of red and the symbol of love, as well as a number of men, who see this day as an enormous slot machine, with no jackpot.
However, International Women’s Day is much more than that.
In the 20th century, a century of wars and bloodshed, killing and battles, the extortion and mistreatment of workers, so that the upper echelons could keep up with the industrial and capitalistic expansion, arose a large movement for the rights of all mothers, the workers and heroines of the age who decided to say “stop” to the injustice and inequality they faced. Those are the women who worked in big factories for low wages all while running their households, the ones who weren’t respected and valued for all that they did because of prejudices toward women, the weaker sex that was not capable enough to earn the pay men did.
Gender inequality existed in the past, but it is still an ongoing battle. It exists in our progressive society which has reached a technological peak, despite men’s wages in 2016, in the European Union being higher than women’s, despite the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina counting only 40-45% women. How absurd!
Have you ever thought about why in history class you so rarely hear about women ruling kingdoms, queens with absolute power to rule, women that were presidents, heroines, innovators, scientists, poets, artists and revolutionaries? Because there weren’t any, and if there were, they were women that fought for sovereignty or those that were thought to be witches, heretics, harlots, those who were murdered, burned at the stake, banished, all because of their gender or the tragic fate of a beautiful woman. But it isn’t much better today, because, admit it or not, women in certain parts of the world continue to fight for the right to make decisions about their own lives.
Let us remember the fire in a factory in New York, when 140 women died, the demonstrations of 1908, when 15000 unsatisfied women wanting their rights marched on the streets of New York, the German revolutionaries Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg, the famous quote: “Here with our votes!”, but also the misfortunate violence in Teheran on Women’s Day in 2007.
I believe this event is becoming a one day show of appreciation for women, a day when they should feel special even though they know they’ll return to their good old subordinate position. I don’t understand the purpose of flowers and love only on this day, when women’s rights should be celebrated every day, when women around the globe still do not have the right to vote, to drive, when they live in a patriarchal society, suffer violence, and, in some undeveloped African countries, undergo genital mutilation in unhygienic conditions where most of them die from the pain, bleeding or sepsis. There are abortion laws that prevent women from making decisions about their own bodies. Women get fired for being pregnant, the don’t get maternity leave. Rapists and murderers run rampant through the streets, and some even visit their victims because the government doesn’t have enough money to keep homes safe and the police doesn’t answer the outcries of helpless women being mistreated by a violent husband… There are countless examples, but so little action is being taken to solve these problems.
International Women’s Day is a day that must be marked, but not just on that one day with flowers, but every day in every country. All women deserve equal rights regardless of where they are.
Dear women, mothers and workers, celebrate your day and fight for your rights every day of the year. Do not let yourselves be oppressed, because women are magical creatures that give birth, bring a new life into this world, they create it, raise it and that is more than enough for them to be respected and loved!