March is women’s history month. Apparently, we need a month to focus on women, since the rest of the year they seem to be almost invisible in history, in the arts, in science, etc…More than half of the world population and yet we are still unrecognized, underrepresented and each 8th of March, the fight continues.
Much like when Pride month is around the corner and companies stick a rainbow onto their logo, with no intention of doing much more for the issue presented, we wonder what this time means for us. In the case of queer history, Stonewall, said to be the first celebration of pride, in a way, was a revolt against the police. Violence was on its origin. Meanwhile, now we celebrate queer history in a display of extravagant colours, feathers and the celebration that brings, at least to Madrid, thousands of tourists each year, push the fight to the background.
In the same way that companies hijack different social movements for their own benefit or how the meaning of Christmas might be lost in the crowded malls, Women’s Day seems to be an excuse once again for profit. Dye everything purple, shopping offers, discounts for chocolates, flowers and jewellery – all those gendered gifts for the delicate women. Even worse, those discounts are not only applied to objects that can be seen as possible gifts, but also on household items like vacuums, kitchenware, cleaning supplies or even an ironing board! These Women’s Day offers appear almost borderline offensive when it reproduces again the gender stereotype assigned to women, we like to look pretty and we need to do our chores.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/recreated-ads-from-1950s-gender-roles-reversed-2018-1?IR=T
One main difference between Spain and not only Poland, but other countries worldwide, is that this day is usually referred to as Día de la Mujer Trabajadora (Day of the Working Women). Back in high school, I remember boys poking fun at us for celebrating a day that was meant for the working women, so not really for us. The original overlap between Women’s Day and the worker’s rights movements has been muddied to the point of new stories covering up the truth. Up until today, I still thought the 8th of march, this date was chosen because of some factory fire where female workers had died. Turns out that fake story, debunked by historians, was used as a cover-up for the original reason for choosing the date, the Russian Revolution.
As the fighting part of this day becomes less prevalent and almost hidden, the celebratory flowers take center stage. As beautiful as the gesture of appreciation can be, a wonderful excuse for men and boys to think about the women in their life and their importance, do they also think about our struggles? Maybe these flowers could be better spent left over the ashes and tombs of the rights that have never been there or that have been lost over these last few years due to the alt right wave that’s flooding this celebration with bloodshed.
When I went to the protest held on March 7th, one thing surprised us to my German, French and Spanish friends. There were almost no people compared to the multitudinary demonstrations held not only in a capital city like Madrid but in smaller ones like Koln or Bordeaux. In my high school, during the break, all the female students went out to the playground and we shouted in unison different reclaims, some sayings that were almost crass but were an outlet for the type of oppression you start feeling the weight of even more once you step into puberty and your body begins to change. So instead of flowers, we get a unified aggressive chant. The anger is more than justified and as women, we are almost never allowed to show rage. In this sense, this almost ritualistic outlet felt liberating. But on the other hands, we didn’t get any flowers or appreciation from our fellow male colleagues but rather a counter-protest that made the fire of the gender war burn even brighter.
Coming from a completely different context, where the demonstrations were almost a must for any girl, and the centre of Madrid was transformed into a violet (and sometimes violent) wave, the flowers and nice gestures here surprised me. For the 23rd of April, the Day of the Book, Saint George or Sant Jordi in catalan, it is common for men to get books while women get roses. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this infantilizing and paternalizing flower. If this day is seen as a day to keep fighting more than a celebration, is it not more empowering? Quoting one of the pioneering feminists and mother to the inventor of sci-fi; “My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” (Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman).
Flowers represent spring, beauty, nature, blooming, something beautiful and it’s a usual gesture in many social settings, so am I ascribing an undeserved bitterness to a wonderful display of appreciation for women? I couldn’t help but wonder, am I so blinded by the rage sparked by the horror stories that all women have to live that I can’t recognize the beauty in the female condition? Was I punishing a kind hearted gesture coming from a good place? Could we not fight against the patriarchy while also having a flower in hand alike the carnation revolution in Portugal? On the other hand, as Audre Lord stated, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In this sense, can consumerism and gifts really help at all our cause?
Back to the demonstration, the lack of crowd made it feel like an even more important and needed presence. I take for granted many rights that have been achieved back in Spain, for example, abortion or same sex marriage. Polish women won the right to vote in 1918, more than years prior to Spanish women. Many people do agree with the most basic fights, the suffragette movement – whose violent revolts and riots are once again hidden under the rug countless times – and the first waves of feminism. But now the main reclaim is that we have gone too far, we are met with disdain that equality is already there, but is it really? I don’t think so.
Back to the demonstration, the lack of crowd made it feel like an even more important and needed presence. I take for granted many rights that have been achieved back in Spain, for example, abortion or same sex marriage. Polish women won the right to vote in 1918, more than years prior to Spanish women. Many people do agree with the most basic fights, the suffragette movement – whose violent revolts and riots are once again hidden under the rug countless times – and the first waves of feminism. But now the main reclaim is that we have gone too far, we are met with disdain that equality is already there, but is it really? I don’t think so.
I thought that in a country lacking a right, that personally seems basic – the right to decide what to do with your own body, is missing in Poland but the fight for it that is so prevalent and visible in countries like Argentina, here its dwindling. Some reclaims in the demonstration, like equalizing the choice over female bodies to the rights of cows from an animal rights or vegan perspective, rubbed me off the wrong way. But in general, it felt good to be part of a movement relatively small in comparison to the crowded streets of Madrid each March 8th. I do miss how this crowd felt like a warm hug, even my mother and her friends joined in. It’s intergenerational, all women from everywhere come together and it feels real, it feels like community, it feels like you are supported. One of the main chants being: You are not alone.
In the classrooms, I am giving a lesson on Women’s Day, a question that everyone gets right in the quiz is the first female Nobel Prize winner: Marie Skłodowska-Curie. It feels nice knowing that one of the greatest national sources of pride is a female scientist, knowing that science classes are famously male-dominant. I start the class by asking a simple yet complex question. It is not Hamlet’s conundrum, to be or not to be, but rather Beauvoir’s one, what does it mean to be a woman? From long hair and makeup, to clean and smart or to courageous or even hormonal, the answers vary from class to class, from person to person. This lack of a stable definition not only evidences the lack of reflection most have regarding gender but how empty the definition of woman really is, no more than an oppressive condition, artificial.
Mark Renton, main character of Trainspotting, said in the 1996 movie; 1,000 years from now there will be no guys and no girls, just wankers. Sounds great to me. We are far away yet from that post-gender ideal society (although this utopia may sound like a dystopia for some who yearn for the traditional gender roles to go back in style, such as incels and tradwifes). Until gender becomes meaningless and no one is discriminated based on what they were assigned at birth, our answer is still in solidarity, being accompanied in the pain and in our daily struggles. Many voices coming together for one goal – real equality! The most important right of all, to be free of these chains.
“If there is something right in Beauvoir’s claim that one is born, but rather becomes a woman, it follows that woman itself is a term in process, a becoming, a constructing that cannot rightfully be said to originate or to end. As an ongoing discursive practice, it is open to intervention and resignification.” Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity
