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Uted to women?

ULE TTT Tit Ti | :

AS you one of those peo-

ple who say, “March 8!
International Women’s Day?
What’s it all about? Why
do women make such a fuss,

“anyway? They should stay

at home and raise their families
Otherwise, who’s going to do
it?”

There are still many people who
hold these views and hold them
Pretty strongly. The women’s
“fuss” is just that to them—un-
Necessary expenditure of energy
on the part of a sex, which, if
it doesn't watch out, is going to
Tuin the basic
Therefore, it’s up to the women,
®n this day of days, to set forth

Clearly, (and as patiently as they
®an) the facts as to why the
“fuss,” why the dissatisfaction,
What the origin and future are
of their militant organizations.

It all started long ago, when
the first cave man first collected:

excess cattle and became the first
Private owner of surplus wealth.
Up until this time, men and wo-
men had been absolutely equal
Partners, in that each owned his
°r her own tools and was con-
Sidered of equal importance to the
Other. When the man extended
his activities to the raising of
Surplus ‘cattle, his position be-
Came -more important than that
Of the cave man. It is from such
8N inauspicious beginning that

' Sur’ whole concept of woman as

the inferior being developed.

Under the successive social
Systems of slavery and feudalism

® role of women degenerated to -

€ point where they were con-
Sidered Merely ag a means where-
by mankifa was propagated, and
Whereby private property could be
€pé within the family. Education
°r women? Marriage based on
mutual love? Intelligence attrib-
“Ridiculous!”
Sried the 18th century exponents
Our* 20th century, “stay at
home” rationalists,

The Industrial Revolution came, :

with _ twofold repercussions: _ it:
°Pened the locked door of the

me for women, but ushered

them into a slavery inconceivable
e US—endiess hours of poorly-

é

family union.

Women collecting signatures for peace .. .

What wome

URE

‘paid labor; back-breaking, health-
wrécking industrial toil. Women
and children were now valued as
sources of cheap labor. How
could intelligent women fail: to
learn cruel, unforgettable lessons
in the grim school of the Factors
ies? i
They did not fail.

gropingly, to fight.

They began,

e

On ouy continent, the first thing
the women organized and fought
for was their right to vote. Then,
as now, blind. exponents of the
status quo cried, “Why \are wom-
en never satisfied? This is going
to break up the home!”

The history of the Woman Suf-
fragettes abounds with almost un-
believable accounts of courage
and devotion against tremendous
odds. They were beaten, arrest-
ed, scorned, laughed at as par-
takers in the “Petticoat Revolt.”
They petitioned, demonstrated,

distributed agitational leaflets.’

2

And in 1848 they organized the
very first congress for the rights
of women ever held on this con-
tinent. The fact that they were
locked out from their meeting-
hall deterred them not at all.
They simply climbed in through
the window, unlocked the doors,
and carried on!

How does history present their
struggles to us? Considered
then, acknowledged
everywhere now as pioneers of
progress. Let ‘us remember the
Suffragettes when next we ridicule.
the demonstrations

ridiculous

pressed!

In 1908 there was a particular-
ly impressive parade of women
workers who marched in New

York, carrying banners proclaim-:
“ing the demand for women suff-

rage. The story goes of a group
of men, gathered in a hotel room,
prepared to enjoy the specatacle

PSE EEE eS

~... to banish the horrors of war

of the op--

’

of a petticoat parade. As the long

.

files marche past, the mien’s Sai-
lies grew’ fewer and fewer; cigars
burned unheeded. Finally one
man sighed and said to the others,

“Well; boys! It looks like they
really mean it!”

They did.
ee

This parade happened on March

8, 1908. It inspired women every-

where. News of it spread over
the world. It remained for Clara
Zetkin, beloved German revolu-
tionary, to proclaim at a Socialist
Congress in 1910 that from then
on, March 8 would be celebrated
as International Women’s Day.
It is a shining and glorious
heritage, one of which all women
can be proud and for which they
can be grateful. Thanks to none
but the militant women of the
past, we now send our daughters

,

FEN

By ANN WILSON

\-
PO

to school, expect them'to vote, and
to marry a man of their own
choice. Then why are not women
now satisfied? Surely they are
now free to do the things they
want to do? ‘

On the ccontrary—there is yet
much to be won.

As long as the possibility of
war can threaten women’s hus-
bands and homes; as long as a
family’s security ig a flucuating
source of anxiety; as long as
women in industry are discrim-
inated against as to type of work
offered and amount of wages
paid; as long as mothers have no
recourse to child care, day nurs-

eries, kindergartens, day schools;

as long as housewives cope end-
lessly with antiquated equipment
and household drudgery to the
point where their abilities and
talents are submerged in the daily
unproductive round of cooking
and cleaning — in short, just so
long,as women’ are considered and
kept as inferior human beings,
just so long qan women not con-
sider themselves free.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MARCH 9, 1951 — PAGE 5 ©

During their long and heroic
fight for their rights, women
learned two lessons. First, that
those sections of society which al-
lied themselves with the women
were not the rich and privileged
sections, but equally oppressed
minorities and the labor move-
ment. Second, that-it was not
primarily men as a sex who were
their enemies, but the entrench-
ed and greedy exponents of a so-
cial system based upon private
ownership—modern capitalism, as
we know it today.

The women learned that their
own struggle for equality was in-
extricably joined with the struggle
of the Negro people in the U.S.
for equality, with the working
class struggle for better pay and
conditions, with the labor move-
ment as a whole in its struggle
for socialism.

That is why women today fight
not only for their own equality
but also in golidarity with all op-

‘pressed peoples, for the final vic-

tory of socialism over capitalism,
for a world united in projects of
peaceful living.

It is a great ,and inspiring
thought that one can say with
real certainty the fight will most
surely be won. For already in the
Soviet Union and the New China,
women are reaping the harvest of
many years of struggle. Korean
women will also soon see the ful-
fillment of the desires they are
fighting for so sacrificingly today.

oe

What can Canadian women do
to experess their horror at the
very thought an atomic war?
How can they oppose developing
fascism in their own country, and
express their need for peace and
economic freedom?

Now, as in the bitter struggles
of the thirties, they must look to
the organizations of the working
class for the kind of action they
are seeking, to the trade unions,
peace assemblies, the Labor-Pro-
gressive party, the Congress of
Canadian Women.

This Congress of Canadian Wo-
men is affiliated with the Inter-
national Democratic Federation,
-which is a non-political organiza-
tion having for its aims four
the equality of women,
the ensuring of the normal de-
velopment of children, the stamp-
ing out of fascism, the establish-
ment of an enduring peace. With

such a program confronting wé6-
men, can anyone still ask “Why

are women never satisfied?”

points:

In this age of the increasing
danger of fascism and of atomic
war, women ‘owe it to themselves
to ‘join the ranks of those who
will leave as their legacy to the

women of the future the establish-
ment of the four above-mentioned

aims. They should not be de-
terred by those who would decry
their efforts as ridiculous, but re-
member the initiators of Inter-
‘national Women’s Day and their
stubborn “stay at
home.” In the words of Eliza-
beth Cady Stanton:

refusal to

Is there an instance in all his-
tory’of an oppressed class being
secured in all their rights with-
out assuming a “belligerent at-
tityde”? Earnestness, true dig-
nity ofttimes require a “bellig-
erent attitude” ... When we
can get all our women up to the
white heat of a “belligerent at-
titude”, we may have some hope
of our speedy enfranchisement.

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