International Women's Day

[oursin]

I asked this in a comment on someone else's lj, but I think this is a question of more general interest, so I'm posting it here.

Zoe Williams ranted yesterday in the Guardian and one of my flist noted something similarly icky in a locked post.

So what would be an appropriate way to celebrate or mark International Women's Day, that wasn't twee and girly-wirly, but did incorporate some element that was celebratory, while also incorporating some element of 'not there yet, are we?'*

And we notice that while lj has produced a themed Women's History Month 'virtual gift' with proceeds to charity (so a moderate 'good for them'), today is a festival that doesn't seem to have inspired them to do a special design for the day (maybe something in the suffragette colours?)

*ETA: This does rather remind me of the Jules Feiffer cartoon (which I can't find on teh internets) featuring his recurrent character of The Dancer, in which her piece of interpretative dance involves so many contradictory elements that she ends up in a contortionist huddle on the floor.

Comments

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

I vote for something like Saturnalia where the slaves and masters swap places for the day. We can have the three hour business lunches with wine at La Gavroche whilst they stay behind to answer the phones.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Oh my, that reminds me of one of my favourite Ken Dodd jokes:

WIFE: Do you fancy trying something new tonight? Something a bit more... adventurous?

HUSBAND (salivating) Ooh, yes!

WIFE: Right then, you stand behind the ironing board and I'll sit on the settee and scratch myself.

[forthwritten.livejournal.com]

I've seen things done before where things were charged at the percentage the buyer earns (sorry, clumsily explained).

So if a man pays £1 for a coffee, a woman would pay 87p. I think our student Guild did this and the men thought it was deeply unfair...

[shiv5468.livejournal.com]

Oh I've heard about that, and think it's a fabulous idea.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's ever so good!

[flats.livejournal.com]

The LSE do this in Women's Week (the Union organise a lot of themed activist sorts of weeks; this was a couple of weeks ago for us) and I haven't heard any kvetching about it at all.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say getting together to do readings of female authors, but then I would, wouldn't I....:)

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

Good question!

I was planning to buy myself one of those Room of One's Own mugs (if I can find one) for use at work, but that's rather a solitary sort of celebration.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

some element that was celebratory, while also incorporating some element of 'not there yet, are we?'

Seems to me this implies a narrative - about how historically and globally, the position of women has improved - which carries within it an account of the process by which this has been achieved and the obstacles overcome, and adumbrates, at least, a sense of what is not yet achieved. (Then there is the counter-narrative, which should not be ignored, of course, about the things that are getting worse...) The performance of narratives, in one or another shape or form, is a very ancient form of communal celebration.

An epic poem on the battle for women's rights, commissioned from a leading poet, to be declaimed, serially, on Radio Three: I like that idea.

But I am sure there would be rather more popular appeal in adapting an idea from ancient Athens, and having an annual themed drama competition: a selection of winning entries to receive performance, or anyway, a reading, and the top two or three to be performed on television.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

The Aphra Behn award competition? I was thinking along lines of reviving plays by women: there were some very interesting ones coming out of the suffrage movement, and during the interwar years, besides a number of other female Restoration dramatists.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I'd be very happy to see more revivals of old plays by women writers. Though when you go back to the seventeenth century, they are not necessarily celebratory in their attitude to women.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Shame the virtual charity gifts only work for USA users.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Like phone-posting...

[ironed_orchid]

What she said.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Driving somewhere interesting with a woman friend, and then paying for lunch with money one had earned oneself.

[purplejavatroll.livejournal.com]

Well, I celebrated it by drawing attention to it by mentioning it to all and sundry, as I think that nowhere near enough people know about it.

Oh, and I also refused to do the dishwashing in the lab today, telling my boss that I wasn't about to do the dishes on International Women's Day. (I don't do an unproportional amount of dishes there, I feel obliged to point out.)

pjt

[coughingbear]

Nothing on Google either. I was slightly surprised there didn't seem to be any relevant articles in the Guardian. I have been mentioning it to people, and my (female) boss took me and a (female) colleague out for lunch, not strictly to celebrate the Day but to mark a great deal of work put in finishing off a relevant publication, so that seemed quite appropriate.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Hmm: there was a slew of correspondence in the wake of ZW's article, a longish article in G2 about someone who had been playing a policewoman in The Bill for what seemed like centuries and the attitudes to policewomen then and now, and a piece in the Business section about women who abandon their careers even before they bash up against the glass ceiling. Maybe they thought that counted?

Plus, but this was possibly coincidental, a short report about possible changes in the abortion law, making it easier to get and shorten the waiting times.

[coughingbear]

Yes, it probably does! I hadn't read the letters page at that point - and I enjoyed the article about policewomen. And there was an article about the Iranian women's protests yesterday. I just somehow expected more actual mention of the day, and had vague memories of this happening in the past.