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Celebrating Women!
"Women's day is not just the 8th of march, every day should be celebrated as women's day!" Right? Then why do we even need to select a specific day and label it as women's day, when it's so easy to celebrate every day for women?
Well, the philosophical answer lies in the question itself. You've been living every day since you were born, right? Then why do you even need to celebrate your birthday?
Let's take a more specific example, talking of India, we're an independent nation, so why do we celebrate independence day on the 15th of August? Why not every day? Ofcourse we know that we're independent each day but there's a reason behind having a specific day for its celebration.
Similarly, there's a reason for having a specific day for celebrating women around the world. Well, not that all women emerged on the earth that day out of nowhere (-_-).
[Digging a little deeper into history, we observe different dates for the celebration of women's day during the emergence of "women's rights moments" especially across North America and Europe. But Russia first marked the 23rd February (Julian Calendar) as "National women's day" for the first time in the year 1913-which as per Gregorian Calendar was the 8th of March. Then in the year 1914, Germany also celebrated women's day on the 8th of March.
The day left its significance in the year 1917 when women textile workers in Russia went on a mass strike on the 8th of March demanding peace (as World War 1st was going on), women's right to vote, and an end to the monarchy. With this mass strike going on, the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas II got demolished within 7 days and women in Russia were granted the Right to Vote. And with the importance this event holds in history, in the year 1977, The UN General Assembly proclaimed the 8th March as an official holiday not just for women's rights but for world peace too].
Now coming to how people see it in the present, we need to analyze society first. Feminism at present has taken different turns, due to which, it has been much easier to turn the youth towards a misogynistic thought process. Many people now see women's day as a day when women want to claim themselves as higher than men. Not just this but many people think that this itself is the definition of feminism (whereas feminism is all about equality and not the dominance of one over the other). Mentioning how women have played a major role in history helps to make people understand that women have contributed a lot towards issues like gender equality, peace, and much more!
_______
Women need to stand up for women:
"A woman is a woman's biggest enemy" this is something I've been always taught growing up. Although I have always been someone who believed in equality among all regardless of any factor including gender. But this statement was something I used to think of as truth. Reason? Growing up in an Indian household, some or other day, I've encountered those typical Indian serials where women have been depicted as each other's enemies. Apart from this, women in our society have been taught to always blame other women for any issue. This made me believe that women can never see other woman's success. Although it's true that misogyny is still misogyny even when it comes from a woman, but acknowledging people's behavior lately, I've observed that we as women can always be supportive to each other if we're not taught otherwise. The biggest fault of society is calling out women for any bad thing that ever occurs.
A few years back, when I first learned the word "feminism" I thought it really suits to who I am. But interacting with more people, what I saw was that people are having a very negative image of this particular word in their mind. I'm not sure if they even knew what feminism actually is( ˘_˘).
But this all made a huge impact on me and even after learning a lot about feminism, I never labeled myself as a feminist as feminists are considered evil by many people in our society and I was afraid of it.
After a long battle between my thoughts, when I finally accepted that calling oneself feminist is not a bad thing at all, I still wasn't sure to call myself one as I used to think that it requires some kind of validation to be a feminist. But now, to anyone who's facing the same, I just want to tell you that, no it's not a bad thing to be a feminist, and neither does it requires any specific validation. If you think you're a feminist, you are!
Today, I'm more than proud to say that yes, I am a feminist (why feel shameful to say that I believe in equality?).
To all the beautiful and empowering ladies out there, this women's day, let's make a promise to ourselves that we are never going to talk sh*t about other women just to get male validation.
Let's embrace womanhood and stand up for each other and ourselves too!
© Gunjita Pant
Well, the philosophical answer lies in the question itself. You've been living every day since you were born, right? Then why do you even need to celebrate your birthday?
Let's take a more specific example, talking of India, we're an independent nation, so why do we celebrate independence day on the 15th of August? Why not every day? Ofcourse we know that we're independent each day but there's a reason behind having a specific day for its celebration.
Similarly, there's a reason for having a specific day for celebrating women around the world. Well, not that all women emerged on the earth that day out of nowhere (-_-).
[Digging a little deeper into history, we observe different dates for the celebration of women's day during the emergence of "women's rights moments" especially across North America and Europe. But Russia first marked the 23rd February (Julian Calendar) as "National women's day" for the first time in the year 1913-which as per Gregorian Calendar was the 8th of March. Then in the year 1914, Germany also celebrated women's day on the 8th of March.
The day left its significance in the year 1917 when women textile workers in Russia went on a mass strike on the 8th of March demanding peace (as World War 1st was going on), women's right to vote, and an end to the monarchy. With this mass strike going on, the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas II got demolished within 7 days and women in Russia were granted the Right to Vote. And with the importance this event holds in history, in the year 1977, The UN General Assembly proclaimed the 8th March as an official holiday not just for women's rights but for world peace too].
Now coming to how people see it in the present, we need to analyze society first. Feminism at present has taken different turns, due to which, it has been much easier to turn the youth towards a misogynistic thought process. Many people now see women's day as a day when women want to claim themselves as higher than men. Not just this but many people think that this itself is the definition of feminism (whereas feminism is all about equality and not the dominance of one over the other). Mentioning how women have played a major role in history helps to make people understand that women have contributed a lot towards issues like gender equality, peace, and much more!
_______
Women need to stand up for women:
"A woman is a woman's biggest enemy" this is something I've been always taught growing up. Although I have always been someone who believed in equality among all regardless of any factor including gender. But this statement was something I used to think of as truth. Reason? Growing up in an Indian household, some or other day, I've encountered those typical Indian serials where women have been depicted as each other's enemies. Apart from this, women in our society have been taught to always blame other women for any issue. This made me believe that women can never see other woman's success. Although it's true that misogyny is still misogyny even when it comes from a woman, but acknowledging people's behavior lately, I've observed that we as women can always be supportive to each other if we're not taught otherwise. The biggest fault of society is calling out women for any bad thing that ever occurs.
A few years back, when I first learned the word "feminism" I thought it really suits to who I am. But interacting with more people, what I saw was that people are having a very negative image of this particular word in their mind. I'm not sure if they even knew what feminism actually is( ˘_˘).
But this all made a huge impact on me and even after learning a lot about feminism, I never labeled myself as a feminist as feminists are considered evil by many people in our society and I was afraid of it.
After a long battle between my thoughts, when I finally accepted that calling oneself feminist is not a bad thing at all, I still wasn't sure to call myself one as I used to think that it requires some kind of validation to be a feminist. But now, to anyone who's facing the same, I just want to tell you that, no it's not a bad thing to be a feminist, and neither does it requires any specific validation. If you think you're a feminist, you are!
Today, I'm more than proud to say that yes, I am a feminist (why feel shameful to say that I believe in equality?).
To all the beautiful and empowering ladies out there, this women's day, let's make a promise to ourselves that we are never going to talk sh*t about other women just to get male validation.
Let's embrace womanhood and stand up for each other and ourselves too!
© Gunjita Pant
