Today, 8 March, International Women’s Day, happens to be my birthday. As I write at my desk in Uganda, a stream of messages from the makers of all manner of products is pouring into my inbox. “We wish you a happy birthday/women's day. Here is a discount.”
This sales-driven recognition of my existence is a pale way to celebrate my birthday, but it’s especially galling in regards to International Women’s Day (IWD). Well beyond my inbox, these capitalist festivities on 8 March have so fully decoupled this day from its radical origins that attempting to retrieve the day’s socialist spirit would be akin to summoning the dead.
In 1910, in Copenhagen, Clara Zetkin proposed the idea of International Women’s Day to more than 100 women representing unions, socialist parties and working women’s clubs in 17 countries. It was the second International Conference of Working Women. The day, she proposed, would be one for women in every country to “press for their demands”. The conference unanimously approved the proposal.
