"For a New Hope rooted in Struggle, Respect, and Recognition"
A message in commemoration of the International Women's Day
by Katleah Ulrike
At first, that occasion is an event better than your typical "Valentine's Day" or any other day limited to a mere couple, if not "Mother's Day" for the family, for it shows not just love and respect, but recognising the role of the Woman as a partner, a friend, a fellow contributor in building history.
For that event is all about how Women had held half the sky for generations, who afforded to turn a house into a home, and put a heart into one's mind especially in building a better society. At first, Let us recall the glorious history of that event as a result of the struggles of working class women against exploitation and oppression, that made Socialist and Communist female personages like Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai, of the women's movement for equal rights and universal suffrage, and how these women, that alongside their male counterparts, comrades in struggle, who perpetuated the memory of the Paris Commune and who spearheaded on March 8, 1917 the overthrow of Czarist rule in Russia and the rise of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries that institutionalized the celebration of the International Women's Day.
In recalling those events, of building a society of equality and justice, women obtained social and gender liberation, including the right of suffrage and other rights equal to those of men, contrary to its western counterparts whose struggles for emancipation been asserted with some of which been realised particualarly those of suffrage and various rights once limited to those of men. The west has eventually recognised "International Women's Day" only in 1977 when the UN General Assembly proclaimed March 8 as the "UN Day for Women's Rights and World Peace".
Such numerous events had somehow recognised the role of women as part of the struggle. From its militant roots somehow showed how these women adhere to justice, to have equal footing with men and hence be given respect and the right to forge a society amidst actually-existing injustices, disenfranchisements, exploitation. As repressive conditions such as low wages, mass layoffs, high rate of unemployment, gross inequality and widespread poverty prevailed even in the developed countries. The conditions are far worse in the underdeveloped countries such as those of working women are still locked up in sweat shops and burned to death just like the women factory workers in the early years of the 20th century in New York City or London during the 19th Century.
To cite some horrific examples of exploitation, at least 112 workers were killed in the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh in 2013; and 72 workers perished in the Kentex factory fire in the Philippines in 2015.
It may sound strange to say such realities, but these realities be the reason why women has to struggle beyond just recognition. Amidst recognition of numerous contributions in every nation's histories, women’s emancipation is never possible under present day's order of exploitation and injustice. Women must continue to expose and oppose the ruling order for feeding them lies about the goodness and permanence of capitalism to the extent of justifying commodification as "emancipation" particularly those of culture and the arts.
Well, amidst the tide of crisis, women continues to held half of the sky to paraphrase Mao Zedong. be it at home, school, workplace, women has trying to make anything better: for their children, husbands, friends, colleagues, people whom sought how they spend their lives like men, striving for a good future.
Anyways, let's respect, appreciate, and love these women with all for their numerous contributions in life, for their struggle against the tide of exploitation and injustice, and the willingness to create a world full of possible changes.