Readers will probably get acquainted with this issue of our newspaper a little later than usual. And they have a good reason - after all, this Saturday, first of all, they will not get acquainted with the news, but congratulate their dear, loved ones, who make our life more beautiful and kinder. After all, this is International Women's Day
Perhaps now is not the time for the holidays, but nevertheless, it is simply impossible to ignore such a date. And the point is not even that "it is so accepted", but because women really deserve to be given only pleasant surprises at least once a year all day long. In addition, they had to strive for such a right for a long time and, in general, the recognition of their equality.
Suffice it to say that even in the middle of the 19th century, women were almost officially considered, if not "second-class people", then at least half of humanity, which has nothing to meddle in the affairs of men. At the same time, their conscience did not interfere with exploiting them in every possible way. It is not surprising that for the first time it was the working women who acted as an organized force, who most strongly felt on themselves all the injustice of the structure of the patriarchal society. According to one version, the first demonstration - the "march of empty pots" - took place on March 8, 1857 in New York, and textile workers and seamstresses took part in it, demanding better working conditions, shorter working hours and providing them with the same wages. as for men. After all, then, recall, the duration of the working day in light industry reached 16 hours …
It is not known for certain whether this march took place on this particular day. It is likely that he did, since it was on March 8, 1908 (and this has already been recorded quite clearly) in the same New York that the local Social Democratic women's organization held a meeting. Its participants demanded to grant equal rights to the fair sex (including electoral rights - yes, at the beginning of the 20th century in the "most democratic country" women were deprived of the right to vote), to shorten the working day, to establish them the same salary as men. The scale of the action is impressive - more than 15 thousand women passed through the entire city.
The following year, the Socialist Party of America declared the last Sunday of February as national women's day, and in 1910, after a meeting of representatives of the organization at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen with the communist Clara Zetkin, this initiative was also supported in the Old World.
Already in 1911, International Women's Day was celebrated in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland, after 2 years - also in France, Russia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Holland. True, in each of the countries rallies and processions that attracted public attention to the problems of women took place on different days, namely on March 8 this action took place in 1914 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and Switzerland. And soon they managed to achieve partial success - until 1917, the right to vote (full or partial) was guaranteed to residents of Australia, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Iceland.
It is worth noting the fact that on March 8, according to the new style, when the February Revolution of 1917 began, one of the first to go on strike … again, women - textile workers in the Vyborgsky district of Petrograd. And they demanded not only bread, that is, the satisfaction of elementary human needs, but also ensuring equality - a social need of a higher level. So, in the literal sense of the word, Russian workers did not want to be fed with bread alone.
In memory of just this event in 1921, after the victory of the socialist revolution, at the 2nd Communist Women's Conference it was decided to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8. True, it became a holiday and non-working day only since 1966, in accordance with the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The political coloring of this date faded somewhat over time, which was primarily due to the fact that in the USSR women had already achieved complete equality in all spheres of life. But at the same time, they did not stop fighting for it to triumph throughout the world, and the UN listened to their opinion: since 1975, in connection with the International Year of Women, it began to hold International Women's Day on March 8. And now the tradition has become truly worldwide.
