8 March 1975. The day chosen by the United Nations to celebrate womanhood internationally, and everything that comes with it.
“And what about a day for men?”, “Nowadays we have the same rights, we don’t need it anymore”, “It’s not fair that only women have a whole celebration for themselves”.
Just as it is not fair that, with an average frequency of once every three days, a woman is killed in Italy, according to data from the Red Cross and the Ministry of the Interior.
We rarely appreciate enough the good things we already have.
“He who has bread has no teeth”. And if you are a woman and “unlucky”, you may not have teeth either, because your husband broke them with a punch.
Even though we know that luck is not the real culprit. Lady Luck, unfortunately, has nothing to do with millennia of male education that represses emotional expression and empathy, while promoting aggression and domination as signs of strength and pride. That responsibility belongs to us. To those who see and pretend it is not happening.
Yet all of this seems to fade into the background compared to receiving a beautiful, fragrant and inexpensive mimosa flower. A modest tribute for “our women”.
The history of this day actually has much older roots, even before women’s suffrage was introduced.
We are in the United States, in 1908. Women are not housewives, as we often like to imagine them, but workers. And they work a lot. Far too much, in inhumane conditions.
Factories in the textile sector must produce. And quickly.
For the average factory owner, the most efficient method is to exploit the workforce as much as possible, to their detriment.
Who cares, after all? Women do. They go on strike. They protest. They make noise. They take the space that belongs to them. “We exist, you must recognize it”.
“Each time a woman stands up for herself, she stands up for all women”, Maya Angelou.
The idea of making this day “international” came in 1910, during the International Conference of Socialist Women, with the goal of promoting universal suffrage and women’s rights.
And why March 8? The final date is linked to a precise historical event. On that very day in 1917, according to the Gregorian calendar, women in Saint Petersburg took to the streets demanding bread and the end of the war.
This event is known as the beginning of the “February Revolution”, an important historical step for the socialist movement.
In Italy the celebration came later. The first Women’s Day was held in 1922 and, in 1946, the UDI, the Union of Italian Women, chose the mimosa as the official symbol, since it bloomed around that time of the year and was affordable for everyone.
by Agnese Aurola