Though Cowards Flinch

So, International Women’s Day has been and gone.

At the weekend, the Observer asked whether it’s needed.

Good question. The brief answers from an Anastasia de Waal, a Barbara Gunnell and a certain Sunder Katwala are perfunctory, to the extent of not really saying much at all, although credit goes to Gunnell for remembering the day’s socialist roots:

It is far better being a woman in 2010 than it would have been in 1909 when American socialists celebrated the first such day.

The day before, in what I assume was an article to mark International Women’s Day though it never actually said so, Charlotte Raven had a long review article in the Guardian which I suggest provides a better answer to the question.

Throughout the meandering reflections, the same theme plays itself out to its somewhat unsatisfactory conclusion:

There was a moment in the 90s – I wince to recall it – when women themselves fell in with the view that feminism was unglamorous and inhibiting. It was cramping our style and even worse, stopping us from shopping! Middle-class commentators encouraged their readers to embrace their “inner bimbos”.

For Raven, the core of the ‘feminist question’ is about whether it’s ok to use sexuality as a knowing tool of self-empowerment (a la Madonna), or whether to do is in fact simply to fall prey to the commodification of sex.  The three books she reviews in the article are reviewed through this prism.

And therein lies my central concern about what International Women’s Day has become.

From the outside, it appears to have become a celebration of the fact of being a woman in capitalist society – commodified sexuality and all -  as opposed to a celebration of what the solidarity of women might achieve.  The day, I fear, has turned its back on its radical socialist roots, and is the worse for it.

Look at two quick examples of this.

First, there’s one of the main international website for International Women’s Day, run on what looks at first sight like a philanthropic basis by Aurora GCM Ltd.  In its historical overview of the day, it pays brief attention to its socialist roots in 1908:

15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights

and then to what happened in 1917:

On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for “bread and peace” in response to the death over 2 million Russian soldiers in war. Opposed by political leaders the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. The date the women’s strike commenced was Sunday 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was 8 March.

But then the socialism is gone.  It’s done its job, and the link between ideals of solidarity and feminism are no longer needed:

Since its birth in the socialist movement, International Women’s Day has grown to become a global day of recognition and celebration across developed and developing countries alike.

Such a stance is hardly surprising, when you look a little more closely at what Aurora stands for:

Aurora is a niche marketing company founded in 2000 by Glenda Stone. Aurora is based in the City of London, serving over 100 corporate clients globally across sectors. The majority of Aurora’s clients are from the professional services, finance and technology sectors, however Aurora also has many clients in energy & utilities, pharmaceutical, FMCG, property, engineering, retail and travel sectors as well as many public sector clients in government and academia.

In fact, nowhere on this whole publicity webpage is there any mention of women, never mind feminism.

This is not to be critical of Aurora Ltd itself.  Within its own value system, it’s doing nothing wrong.  It’s seen a marketing opportunity in the sponsorship/hosting of a major website about International Women’s Day, and it’s gone for it;  I’m sure there’s even a genuine commitment by Aurora to Ms Stone’s and her colleagues’  understanding of feminism in there.  Ms Stone may even admire Madonna.

But it does make you wonder what International Women’s Day has become, when it is so clearly tied to the capitalist dream for its infrastructural support

As a second example of how I think International Women’s Day has lost what once made it tick - and I appreciate I’m courting controversy here - there’s the Million Women Rise rally held yesterday, perhaps THE major event in the UK marking International Women’s Day.

Here’s what the blog says about the reason for the rally:

The women organising the march say that “enough is enough”.  Never has the rape of a woman’s right and dignity been so systematic and coordinated, the health and lives of women have never faced such peril.

The women’s march has been organised by ordinary women fed up with violence against women in all its forms.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am in no way trying to suggest that challenging sexual violence, or any violence, against women is anything other than of huge importance, and it is great that so many women should come together to confront it in all its forms and to take solidarity with each other.

But in the end, is that all that International Women’s Day is for?  Is it solely to remain a recognition of women’s position in an overwhelmingly patriarchal world?

Does it solely seek to define women’s position in relation to men, but stop short of confronting other issues that confront women, but also men?

Does it simply define women as they are, or should it seek to celebrate and agitate for what they might achieve together – just as the Russian women of 1917 did?

Over the last few days, Though Cowards Flinch has hosted  some great contributions from socialist feminists, and I particularly enjoyed what Louise and Kat had to say on the relationship between socialism and feminsim in the 2010s, when the female form has been commodified in a way it has never been before, and in a way which, it might be argued, makes women complicit in their own victimhood.

For Louise and Kat though, IWD (and feminism more generally) is more than the plaint of victimhood; it’s about strength in solidarity.

Here’s Kat:

But, then I feel more positive. Every day there is another young person waking up, taking a look around and seeing the injustices the capitalist system perpetuates.

And even if they do not all become die-hard Trots, it’s good that there are young people who are conscious of injustice and will only become more so. Whether they choose to stand against capitalism as a whole, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism or sexism, the future is looking fine for the left and the fight for women’s rights. Socialism hasn’t got old, and neither has feminism.

And here’s Louise:

Though not officially related to the [PCS] strike today [Monday] and Tuesday, you can bet that these frustrations will be part of the angry mood amongst workers whose pensions, pay, terms and conditions and future employment are all under dire threat.  And women will continue to fight for equal pay and recognition.

That’s one reason why I will be on a picket on the 8th March to show solidarity and support, as a trade unionist, to the civil servants on strike. International Women’s Day is about global sisterhood and solidarity with working class women across the world fighting for recognition, visibility, rights and against oppression.

But I’ll leave the (near) last word to another socialist feminist, Laurie Penny, who I think was bang on when she said, just a week ago:

‘I am asking for an analysis that is more rigorous, more grounded in an understanding of the gendered basis of capital, an analysis that is less focused on recalcitrant sexual morality……….Today’s young women are neither soulless slags nor tragic victims: we are real people with real desires and real agency, trying to negotiate our personal and sexual identities in a culture whose socio-economic misogyny runs far deeper than conservative commentators would have us believe.’

Women as active agents, and struggling to determine a destiny in which they are equal partners.  That’s more like it.