Across the north of England, pressure is building for more women to be celebrated in statue form.
In many cities and towns, the only women immortalised in stone or marble are either Queen Victoria, naked nymphs or other allegorical figures. In Carlisle, sculptor Hazel Reeves has just been commissioned to produce a statue of two “cracker packers” — female workers at the local McVities biscuit factory.
Reeves has recently been shortlisted or the Emmeline Pankhurst statue commission for St Peter’s Square, Manchester, and is well-known for her seven foot bronze sculpture of Sir Nigel Gresley in King’s Cross Station.
In Leeds, local MP Rachel Reeves is leading the call for a new female statue to join Henry Moore’s naked reclining lady outside the city art gallery. Possible subjects include Olympic gold boxer Nicola Adams, social reformer Mary Gawthorpe, novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford or cycling hero Beryl Burton.
Italy is marking International Women’s Day by giving women free entry to all museum and cultural sites.
But on a much more sober note, Italian president Sergio Mattarella used a speech in honour of IWD at the Presidential Palace in Rome to highlight the “tragic, disturbing social emergency” of femicide in Italy following a raft of high-profile murders.
According to statistics released late last year, more than 100 women are killed in Italy each year in acts that are considered to be gender-related, in most cases by a woman’s partner or ex-partner.
It is estimated that another 3.5m women have been victims of stalking but that only 22 per cent of those victims have reported the incidents or sought help, according to Istat, the national statistics agency.
Mattarella thanked women for their “daily and often strenuous action in favour of a fairer society, more welcoming, more united and integrated”.
There have been some who have suggested that in calling for women to “strike” we are jeopardising those who do not have the “luxury” to call off work. Indeed, organisers of the women’s strike have even been described as privileged. This is as ridiculous as it condescending to both the organisers and working-class women, who apparently are not viewed as capable of making decisions about their own activity on 8 March. Aside from ensuring there are multiple ways for women and their supporters to participate in the strike – including taking part in actions at work such as wearing red, as a gesture of solidarity – we have been inspired by the genuine grassroots nature that is animating cities, colleges, and communities across the country.
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In total, there are more than 60 events planned as part of today’s strike. We have no idea how many people will participate. I don’t expect the same millions who came out on 21 January to take part. But I do suspect thousands will be involved, and that is significant. The point was never to just hold a successful event, but to begin to knit together a network of ordinary people who can revive the struggles for racial and economic justice, sexual liberation and reproductive freedom that have always been at the nexus of the struggle for women’s liberation. We have a world to win, and the women’s strike is an important step in that process.
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AFP are reporting that a group of feminist activists have been detained in Moscow, after protesting by the Kremlin walls with a banner reading “Men have been in power 200 years, down with them!”
AFP reports:
OVD Info, a website that monitors detentions of activists, wrote that seven people were detained including two journalists from Novaya Gazeta opposition newspaper and a photographer and taken to a police station for questioning.
Rights lawyer Mari Davtyan wrote on Facebook that eight had been detained including journalists.
One of the detained activists, performance artist Yekaterina Nenasheva, posted a video of the protest on Facebook showing the activists standing on top of an artificial grotto in a park by the Kremlin walls, holding smoke flares.
“Moscow and St Petersburg feminists who seized the Kremlin congratulate you on March 8,” Nenasheva wrote.
The activists’ banner referred to the fact that Russia’s last female ruler was Catherine the Great, who died in 1796, more than 200 years ago.
TV Rain independent channel reported that the women also carried banners reading “A woman for president” and “We are the majority.”
The protest resembled those by punk group Pussy Riot, who in 2012 lit flares and sang a song about President Vladimir Putin on a platform on Red Square.
March 8 is a public holiday in Russia but is mainly celebrated by giving flowers and chocolates to women rather than stressing the need for gender equality.
In a video address to the nation’s women, Putin said that he and other men “will do all we can so that our beloved women are lavished with care and attention and smile more often.”
Polly Neate, Chief Executive of Women’s Aid, welcomed the “desperately needed” boost to the sector:
It’s not a moment too soon, as Women’s Aid’s most recent national survey found that a third of domestic abuse services are running with no dedicated funding.
The Prime Minister’s strong commitment to helping survivors of domestic abuse is a fitting message for International Women’s Day. With two women a week on average being killed by a partner or ex-partner in England and Wales, something has to change.
When I left my flat for work this morning, my male neighbour from downstairs made a point of congratulating me on International Women’s Day and warmly shook my hand. The day has more significance for ordinary citizens here than it does in the UK - most particularly in eastern parts, where under communism women - almost all of whom had jobs - were feted on this day, with flowers or being given time off work, sometimes even meals or drinks laid on by the boss, etc. Almost 30 years after the collapse of communism, this still happens in some workplaces, though the tradition is dying out.
It’s considered important enough that editorials in several leading German newspapers choose focus on it, arguing that recent global developments underline how we need IWD more than ever at a time when women’s rights are so under attack.
The liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung from Munich writes: “The rise of populists in Germany, Russia, Turkey, America, Hungary, France and Poland has changed everything. They have brought back an image of women which we had thought had long been overcome. In Russia domestic violence will in future be treated as a much milder crime than it was previously, despite the fact that every year 12,000 women are battered to death by their partners. We should be under no illusion - despite regional differences, rights are being eroded in a similarly retrograde and discriminatory way. Women’s rights are not collateral damage in the fight for the greater good, they are a barometer, a symptom of the internal state of a society.
According to The Leipziger Volkszeitung: “Trump, Putin and Erdogan are currently competing with each other in front of all of us for the position of biggest macho. What should we be doing to counteract this particularly difficult to deal with type of man?...Our motto should be ‘the world needs strong women’.
The Lausitzer Rundschau, from Cottbus (like Leipzig in the former communist east) comments: “those who wants to change something but trusts in politics to do this, will wait forever. It was never a comfortable thing to fight for rights and freedoms. Dear women, you must become active yourselves, strengthen your networks and stand up together for your common interests. And we men should be your allies in this, and not just on this day.”
Some campaigners have argued that Spain still overlooks the massive contribution that women have made to society, culture and arts.
As part of Madrid’s belated efforts to honour some of the women who have been overshadowed by their more famous male peers, the city’s mayor will unveil a plaque today to commemorate the Lyceum Women’s Club, a meeting place for some of the leading intellectuals of pre-civil war Spain.
The drive to remember their lives and contributions with plaques is being led by Nuria Capdevila-Argüelles, a professor of Hispanic and gender studies at the University of Exeter.
Capdevila-Argüelles, and her film-maker collaborator, Tania Ballo, have so far provided the city council with research on more than 15 women, including the journalist, actor, writer and diplomat Isabel Oyarzábal, the lawyer and politician Victoria Kent and the poet Ernestina de Champourcín.
“The role of history and an awareness of our past is utterly fundamental. It’s about learning about our diversity, our cultural heritage, about learning about our first attempt at genuine democracy at the beginning of the 20th century, which failed. We need to learn from our past; it’s there as a lesson.”
[E]ven though it may increasingly feel like the end of the road for those enlightenment values that people around the world will march for on 22 April, as long as we show up, we have hope. A quote normally attributed to the anthropologist Margaret Mead puts it best: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
More than 500 women in Thailand, Philippines and India participated in a global solidarity strike for their rights today, according to The Asia Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development (APWLD).
APWLD’s Regional Coordinator Kate Lappin said:
This action is part of ongoing efforts to increase the power of global solidarity strikes as we believe solidarity is the only possible antidote to the growing authoritarianism, deepening inequalities, runaway climate change and sexist leadership the world is experiencing.
Edna Velarde of Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women , Philippines said:
The peasant women joined today’s strike to call on the Duterte administration to turn down neoliberal policies detrimental to the country and fulfill its promises to the Filipino people to provide land to the tillers, food on the table and respect for human rights.
Elizabeth Khumallambam of Nari Shakti Manch, India said:
Women working in unorganized sector continue to face discrimination - unequal wages, sexual harassment at workplaces, absence of social security and maternity benefits. In voicing these suppressions, our strength lies in solidarities across spectrums.
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