Celebrate March 8th at Swanshurst
International Women’s Day
Contents
Famous women or strong women?
4
A century of struggle 6 International Women’s Day 8 The Suffragettes
10
Ideas
12
Inspirations
16
Strike!
24
Made in Dagenham 26
20
A World to win
30
Revolution
34
Quotes
36
What do you think? 38 Further Reading
39
21 8
29
From left to right: Cleopatra, Margaret Thatcher, Joan of Arc, Boudica, Queen Victoria and Elizabeth I and Sarah Palin
Famous women or Strong women
?
Our past and present certainly has it’s share of famous women who have either been thrust onto the stage of history or wrestled their way onto it with intelligence and bravery. But weren’t most of them already rich or powerful to begin with and did they do anything to advance the cause of all women? International Women’s Day is a brilliant opportunity to celebrate change and struggle and discover a different view of history. Advances for women have only ever come about when ordinary people take to the streets in demonstration or organise in their workplaces and communities. That is the vibrant history we want to celebrate here.
A Century Of Struggle
Women's suffragists demonstrate in February 1913 (left); protesting against racism in the UK in the „80s (far left), women leading the Egyptian revolution last year (below left), the amazing Jayaben Desai who led the Grunwick strike in 1977 (above) and Angela Davis speaking to the Black Civil Rights Movement in 1960s.
International Women’s Day
The first International Women‟s Day (IWD) was on March 18th 1911. Over a million people took part. It was an incredibly progressive event with protesters demanding the right for women to vote, to hold public office and to end discrimination in the workplace. From the very start IWD was about ordinary women fighting oppression and demanding equality.
Clara Zetkin (left) with Rosa Luxenborg (right) and Luise Zietz (below) left
Two years previously socialists and workers in the USA had organised the first National Women‟s Day. The following year over 100 women from 17 countries - suffragettes, socialists and activists - met in Copenhagen at an International Women‟s Conference.
Here, two German socialists Clara Zetkin and Luise Zietz, inspired by the event in America and growing militancy throughout Europe proposed the establishment of an International Women‟s Day. Clara Zetkin became an influential figure in the fight for women‟s equality along side another German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. She organised an international women's anti-war conference in Berlin (1915) and was arrested many times by the German authorities for her anti-war activities. German poster from 1914 for International Women‟s Day.
Rosa Luxemborg was murdered by the German authorities in the German Revolution of 1919 but Zetkin survived. Throughout the next two decades Clara Zetkin fought to stem the growing tide of fascism. Eventually she was forced into exile in 1933. She was 76.
The Suffragettes In the UK the suffragettes led the way for women‟s equality. Emmeline Pankhurst (above) and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia were key activists in the struggle. Emmeline began her campaign for votes for women, forming the Women‟s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903. This organisation rapidly became known by the nickname given to it by the Daily Mail - the Suffragettes. But what‟s your impression of the Suffragettes? Polite middle class women petitioning their MPs? Wrong!
Sylvia, especially, led the more militant suffragettes - huge demonstrations and public meetings, stunts, a weekly paper. Many were beaten up by police and arrested countless times; when in jail many went on hunger strike.
Women all around the world have had to fight similar battles in even more difficult circumstances. Women now have the vote in almost every country in the world. Unfortunately equal pay, equal opportunity and abortion rights are still withheld in many places.
Ideas
Mary Woolstonecraft (1759 - 1797) used to be best known for her marriage to the philosopher and radical William Godwin; her daughter Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, and her unorthodox life style. It wasn‟t until late in the nineteenth century with the rise of the suffrage movement, that Woolstonecraft‟s ideas began to be recognised as important. Activists in the 1960s, at the forefront of the feminist movement redicovered Woolstonecraft‟s revolutionary ideas again, especially her major work A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Woolstonecraft was an incredible woman - an intellectual, activist for women‟s rights, a war reporter, a free thinker, a radical republican hugely influenced by the French Revolution, a single mother and a taboo-breaking lover. Try reading her path braking works.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908 –1986) was a French writer and philosopher best known for her feminist classic The Second Sex and her famous declaration, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Beauvoir was also an activist, first politicised when she began working for the resistance movement during World War 2. She went on to criticise France‟s colonial policies throughout her life and became Alexandra Kollontai (1872 - increasingly involved in the 1952) was a Russian Bolshevik women‟s movement. She was and played a leading role in the one of the first to recognise revolution of 1917. The how women‟s lives were revolution briefly saw women changing and how they now gain more freedoms and rights faced the “double burden” of than ever before. She wrote childcare/housework and fantastic essays and novels, working life. always trying to draw women into the struggle for a better world. She recognised how ordinary women often “downtrodden, timid and without rights, suddenly grow and learn to stand tall and straight.” when they start to fight oppression. She moved to Norway when Stalin‟s counter revolution destroyed the dreams of 1917.
Classics of Second Wave Feminism
Germaine Greer, Betty Friedan and Kate Millet were some of the important thinkers and activists who helped to shape the debate in the 1960s and 1970s. This was the time when the womenâ€&#x;s movement fought to broaden the debate: to sex and sexuality, the family, the workplace, reproductive rights and all manner of inequalities. The movement won many gains: marital rape laws, the establishment of rape crisis and battered women's shelters, significant changes in custody and divorce law, and widespread integration of women into the workplace and unions.
A new generation of writers and activists like Natasha Walter, Cordelia Fine, Ariel Levy and Kat Banyard are now beginning to reassert the need for a brand of feminism that confronts women‟s oppression in the 21st century. This means confronting continuing inequalities, biological determinism - the idea that the differences between men and women are in our genes rather than socially constructed - and the objectification of women in all areas of life.
See P33
Angela Davis (b.1944) is an American activist and author who came to prominence in the civil rights movement as a member of the Black Panther Party. She was just 24 when she began publicly speaking out against racism, sexism, the Vietnam War and the death penalty and in support of gay rights and other social justice movements. In 1970 the FBI put her on its „Ten Most Wanted Fugitive List‟ after she had bought guns that were used in a kidnapping. A nationwide campaign applied massive pressure to secure her release and acquittal. Ever since she has campaigned and written tirelessly for a better world. Her biography (1974) and Women, Race, & Class (1983) are classics. She has campaigned against racism and women‟s oppression for over 40 years! Even today she continues to speak out and has been a supporter of the anti-war movement and the recent Occupy movement.
Inspirations Though change undoubtedly comes about through collective struggle that doesn‟t mean individuals don‟t make a difference - intellectuals and artists have made a massive difference in raising awareness and leading the struggle for women‟s rights. Over the next few pages we pay tribute to a number of amazing women. We recognise, of course, that these are personal choices and you will have your own.
From left to right: Emily Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Mary Shelley, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti and Jane Austen.
In the 1800s most aspects of public life were still dominated by men, and that included the arts - just try and think of one famous female musician, composer or artist from before the 20th century. A number of women however fought to write and change perceptions of women‟s experiences and expectations. Often it was very difficult - the Bronte sisters and George Eliot published their novels under pseudonyms. Their novels and poems remain rich and vital - read, studied and loved by millions. “School-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies — such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing”. Charlotte Bronte (from Jane Eyre)
Mary Seacole (18051881) was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Mary learned her nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers. Although technically 'free', being of mixed race, Mary and her family had few civil rights they could not vote, hold public office or enter the professions. Mary travelled all over the world where she complemented her knowledge of traditional medicine with European medical ideas. In 1854, Seacole travelled to England again, and approached the War Office, asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where there was known to be poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers. She was refused. Undaunted Seacole funded her own trip to the Crimea where she established the British Hotel near Balaclava to provide 'a mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers'. She also visited the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded, and became known as 'Mother Seacole'. Her reputation rivalled that of Florence Nightingale. After the war she returned to England destitute and in ill health. The press highlighted her plight and in July 1857 a benefit festival was organised to raise money for her, attracting thousands of people. Later that year, Seacole published her memoirs, 'The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands'.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) is best known for writing her classic short story The Yellow Wallpaper and a feminist utopia, Herland. However she was also a feminist who wrote books and edited her own magazine, The Forerunner where she wanted to "stimulate thought", "arouse hope, courage and impatience". Gilman also lectured for social reform in America and Europe.
Inspirations Virginia Woolf (1882– 1941) is one of the great British novelists and essayists. Her first book The Voyage Out was published 1915 and she would go on to write modernist classics like Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, Orlando and The Waves. Her books and essays confront all the major issues of her time and they often challenged traditional ideas about women and sexuality. In 1929 Woolf wrote A Room of One’s Own, a text that would inspire and influence women throughout the 20th century. She argued that women had been kept from writing by poverty and by familial and societal constraints and that 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'. Perhaps it should be obvious that women need time and a measure of independence in order to be creative. However, even today most women work and take on the majority of domestic tasks, and have to fight for the time and space to follow their dreams.
Katherine Mansfield (1888 - 1923) was born
in New Zealand but came to Britain when she was 20. She is quite simply, one of the best short story writers ever and has been a huge influence on writers ever since. Women like Virginia Woolf, Rosamond Lehmann, Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Lessing and Angela Carter all learnt much of their craft from Mansfield. She died tragically young, only 34. Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a Mexican artist best known for her self portraits though her extraordinary talent wasnâ€&#x;t recognised until long after her death. Today feminists recognise Kahloâ€&#x;s unflinching portrayal of female experience. Her paintings are also valued for their surrealism and their incorporation of traditional and indigenous Mexican culture.
(From left to right - Marjane Satrapi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Persepolis, Samira Makhmalbaf and Arundhati Roy. Britain has always been a nation of immigrants. Today young women from different cultures in the UK can draw inspiration from amazing women all around the world. Many will be familiar with Marjane Satrapiâ€&#x;s brilliant graphic novel Persepolis that was made into a film in 2007. However she is not the only Iranian woman making waves. Iranian filmmakers have made some of the best films in the world over the last decade despite facing often severe difficulties over censorship. Women have taken a leading role. Check out the amazing Blackboards directed by Samira Makhmalbaf or A Separation with an astonishing performance by Leila Hatami.
Arundhati Roy came to worldwide attention when she won the Booker prize for The God of Small Things in 1997. However rather than write more novels Roy has become one of Indiaâ€&#x;s most controversial and inspirational activists, campaigning on a variety of issues - trying to stop the Narmada Dam from being built; supporting independence for Kashmir; speaking out against nuclear weapons, American imperialism, globalisation, and much more. All her writing - fiction and non-fiction is worth reading. If youâ€&#x;re ever in need of inspiration check out Maya Angelou reciting Still I rise.
Strike By 1888 the Bryant and May match factory in east London employed 1,400 workers, mainly young women under the age of 15. They often worked 13 hours a day. A campaigning journalist called Annie Beasant exposed the awful conditions in which the girls had to work. When managers found out that three workers had spoken to Annie they were sacked but hundreds of girls walked out immediately. One of the girls described what happened: "One girl began, and the rest said yes, so we all went. It just went like tinder." With the help of local socialists the girls began to get organised. Soon the whole workforce was on strike and within two weeks they had won important concessions. Their militancy also gave confidence to hundreds of thousands of workers across Britain who struck and demonstrated in the following years.
The twentieth century saw further strikes led by women starting with Bermondsey factory women's strikes in 1911 and the Glasgow rent strikes of 1915 led by Mary Barbour. Towards the end of World War 1 the London bus-girls struck for equal pay in 1918. They demanded the same increase (five shillings a week) in the war bonus as male workers. They won within two weeks and got their pay increase backdated too! The great demands of the war economy meant that most women had to work in factories or on the land during World War 2. By 1945 there were 460,000 women in the military and over 6.5 million in civilian war work. This meant that a generation of women had experienced greater freedoms and different expectations of their lives. Unfortunately these expectations were often dashed as the men returned from the war. It would be the 1960s before womenâ€&#x;s militancy would erupt again with irresistible passion, energy and commitment. This time there would be no going back . . .
Made in Dagenham
The female workforce - 850 strong - at Ford Dagenham made history in 1968. Despite the skilled nature of their job they were only paid 87% of what men at the plant were paid. They struck for three weeks and brought Fordâ€&#x;s entire car production to a standstill. In the end they settled for a deal that brought them to within 8% of male pay. More than that they forced the Labour government to bring in the Equal Pay Act in 1970 (though it didnâ€&#x;t come into force until December 1975).
The real women of Ford Dagenham in 1968 (left) and the recent movie adaption of their struggle (left and below).
In the years that followed, womenâ€&#x;s trade union membership soared and further strikes followed. In 1970 women took a leading role in the unofficial Leeds clothes workers strike. In 1976 another important strike took place when women at the Trico windscreen wipers factory at Brentford struck for 21 weeks before winning their demand for equal pay.
In 1977 150 workers mainly Asian women, led by the amazing Jayaben Desai struck for trade union recognition. It was another historic strike but for very different reasons. Firstly the strike had to face the full force of the British state including extreme police brutality. More importantly it was the first time a mainly immigrant workforce had been supported by the rest of the trade union movement. Thousands of students and trade unionists attended picket lines and went on demonstrations. Today women are at the forefront of a new wave of strikes in defence of pensions and the welfare state.
A world to win
The lives of young women in the UK today are incomparable to that of their grandmothers in terms of work, expectations and sexual freedom. Yet, women still suffer oppression. Itâ€&#x;s a popular media myth that women have got it all now and that there is nothing left to fight for. However, think how today women workers are still paid about 17% less than male workers, rising to two-thirds less among part-time workers. Think of the way most women now work but are still expected to take on the greater share of child rearing and domestic tasks. Think of the billions that is spent on advertising in order to convince women that they should dress a certain way or look a certain way. Think of the complex ways in which the media portray women - idolising celebrity culture and often treating women either as sex objects or domestic goddesses. Think about the massive proliferation of pornography and lap dancing clubs in the last two decades - industries that objectify women and often bully or abuse women that have already suffered sexual or physical abuse. Think about how men are far less likely to be judged for promiscuous behaviour.
In 2011 Daniel Craig and Judi Dench made a brilliant 2 minute video for International Womenâ€&#x;s Day. Lots of important facts, figures and ideas presented in a thought-provoking way.
Facts and figures
30,000 women in the UK lose their jobs annually due to pregnancy. Women are responsible for 2/3 of the work done worldwide, yet earn only 10% of the total income, and own 1% of the property. Every year around the world 70 million girls are deprived of even a basic education. A staggering 60 million are sexually assaulted on their way to school. At least 1 in 4 women in the UK are victims of domestic violence. Every week, two women in the UK are killed by a current or former partner. In many places around the world rape is used as a weapon of war - around 48 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo every hour. In the UK the government estimates that as many as 95% of rapes are never reported to the police at all. Of the rapes that were reported from 2007 to 2008, only 6.5% resulted in a conviction on the charge of rape.
The Abortion Act was passed in 1967 in the UK. Before that women desperate to end unwanted pregnancies had to resort to dangerous backstreet abortions - many women died. For womenâ€&#x;s rights campaigners in the 1950s and 60s (and since) the lawful right to end a pregnancy was crucial - a key part of ending womenâ€&#x;s oppression, giving women control over their bodies and their lives. Of course this is an emotive issue but most people in the UK agree that abortion rights are vital. In many places around the world women do not have these rights. At least 500,000 women around the world die every year because of pregnancy - 70,000 of those because of unsafe abortions.
What do you think?
The womenâ€&#x;s movement is drawing inspiration from a new generation of activists. The SlutWalk protests were sparked after a policeman told a group of female students in Toronto, Canada, that they could avoid rape by not dressing like sluts. The protests exploded around the world fuelled by the knowledge that the police and the courts are failing to protect women.
There are lots of things that still need changing, lots of battles still to be fought. But they can be won.
Revolution Here we simply pay tribute to the courage and conviction of all those who have fought and demonstrated for freedom throughout the „Arab Springâ€&#x; revolutions. Women have been at head of the struggles since the beginning leading, organising - always defiant. We can all learn from their bravery.
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Quotes
“There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver”. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“AS LONG as any woman is kept as an object and prevented from developing her personality, prostitution continues to exist. Prostitution presents a problem of moral, economic and social character which cannot be resolved juridically. Prostitution will be abolished when sexual relations are liberalised, when Christian and bourgeois [views] are liberalised, when women have professions and social opportunities to secure their livelihood and that of their children, when society is established in such a way that no one remains excluded, when society can be organised to secure life and right for all human beings.” Frederica Montseny
“A feminist is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.” Gloria Steinem
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"What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys who dance on your finger-tips, others are lions who can bite your head off. We are those lions, Mr Manager." Jayaben Desai
Can men be feminists? Tricky one huh? First it‟s fair to say that lots of men wouldn‟t want to be feminists anyway - would that make them sexists? The feminist movement is undecided. Some in the women‟s movement believe that men can‟t be feminists and can only, at best, play a subsidiary role in the fight for women‟s rights. This belief is often underpinned by the theory of Patriarchy - the notion that men are inherently sexist, that society is dominated by men and that all men benefit, to some degree, from women‟s oppression. Other activists in the struggle for women‟s rights believe that major changes in society can best be achieved by women and men uniting in struggle.
What do you think?
Sixth Form - Further Reading
Appignanesi L (2008) Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800. Virago Press. London Baird V (2007) No-Nonsense Guide to Sexual Diversity. New Internationalist Publications. Oxford Banyard K (2010) The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today. Faber and Faber. London Campbell S (2011) Rebel's Guide to Rosa Luxemburg Bookmarks. London. Davis M (1999) Sylvia Pankhurst: A Life In Radical Politics. Pluto Press. London Falkof N (2007) Ball and Chain: The Trouble with Modern Marriage. Fusion Press. London Fine C (2011) Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences. Icon Books. London. Levy A (2006) Female Chauvinist Pigs: Woman and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Pocket Books. London Liddington J (2006) Rebel Girls: Their Fight For The Vote. Virago Press. London Van der Gaag N (2007) No-Nonsense Guide to Women's Rights.New Internationalist Publications. Oxford Walter N (2010) Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism. Virago Press. London
On the Web There‟s lots of brilliant information on the web. As usual you have try and assess the objectivity of the information you find. Here are some good starting points. The Guardian always has good articles and the latest facts and figures with links to statistical reports Always help and information at Women‟s Aid and Rape Crisis. Check out what the UK government is doing. For lots of good information you can search the Office for National Statistics and UK National Statistics. Excellent information at The Women‟s Library. “I am a feminist because I dislike everything that feminism implies. I desire an end to the whole business, the demands for equality, the suggestion of sex warfare, the very name feminist. I want to be about the work in which my real interests like, the writing of novels and so forth. But while inequality exists, while injustice is done and opportunity denied to the great majority of women, I shall have to be a feminist. And I shan't be happy till I get . . . a society in which there is no distinction of persons either male or female, but a supreme regard for the importance of the human being. And when that dream is a reality, I will say farewell to feminism, as to any disbanded but victorious army, with honour for its heroes, gratitude for its sacrifice, and profound relief that the hour for its necessity has passed.” Winifred Holtby