According to their website, International Women’s Day (March 8) is a “global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, International Women’s Day is a national holiday.” The day was established to honor the work of the suffragettes who campaigned for women’s right to vote. (Note that the word “suffragette” is derived from “suffrage,” the right to vote. Today some women prefer to lose the “-ette” syllable, which diminishes any word it’s added to, and say “suffragist.”) “Great unrest and critical debate,” the website continues, “was occurring amongst women [at the beginning of the 20th century]. Women’s oppression and inequality was [sic.] spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.”
On March 19, 1911, the site continues, “more than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women’s Day events.”
Two thousand years earlier in Rome, the month of March began with the Matronalia, or Festival of Women, when the Vestal Virgins entered a sacred grove and hung offerings of their hair on the oldest tree. Some historians say that Roman matrons served their female slaves at this feast. For every baby born in Rome, a coin was deposited in the temple of Juno Lucina, “Light,” to give thanks to the goddess for a safe birth. Continue reading “Today is International Women’s Day—Let’s celebrate! by Barbara Ardinger”
Feminism and Religion 