Today is International Women’s Day (IWD) and the social media is abuzz with banal wishes, cheeky forwards, forced hashtags and shopping deals. There are some who are claiming that behind every successful woman is a subservient man; while some are ruing the fact that there is just one day for recognising the efforts of women in our society and life. To avoid taking any stance, let me just direct you to today’s Needull – a brief history of this event.
The story is not as simple. There is a possibility that the claims that the original holiday was established to mark the golden anniversary of a brutally repressed female protest in New York might be a just a plain lie.
In fact, research that emerged in the 1980s suggested that origin myth was invented in the 1950s, as part of a Cold War-era effort to separate International Women’s Day from its socialist roots.
Socialism and Feminism are sisters-in-arms. Right from the inaugural official session of IWD in 1909, which was actually a melting pot for socialists and suffragists, to the 1917 demonstration by Russian feminists which sparked one of the most significant events in modern history – the Russian Revolution of 1917 , all show that IWD is a reflection of our desire for equality – and not just of gender.
Temma Kaplan – Revisiting the Socialist Roots of IWD
Image Source – 8th March 1917 IWD demonstration in St. Petersburg
Needull in a haystack 
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