International Women’s Day: when women marched for Bread and Roses Today World News

International Women’s Day is observed worldwide every March 8; heads of states, governments, and private players and commercial brands send out messages celebrating women’s equality and empowerment , but often without acknowledging its historical roots.

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What is the history behind International Women’s Day?

A closer look at history shows that this day had its roots in women’s struggle that erupted after the Industrial Revolution, with women workers from trade unions mobilising for their rights, specifically garment workers in New York rising for better wages and working conditions. The movement saw took its inspiration from in the socialist and anti-imperialist struggle of the early twentieth century.

American working-class women participating in political activity

Several demonstrations in demand of women’s franchise and political rights of “proletarian” women or women workers have preceded the Women’s Day. 

Alexandra Kollontai, a Russian revolutionary and politician marked the American socialist women’s demonstration in 1909 as the first celebration of Women’s Day. She credited the working-class women of America for organising the first Women’s day.

In an article on International Women’s Day, published in 1920, Kollontai wrote: “Socialists in North America insisted upon their demands for the vote with particular persistence. On the 28th of February, 1909, the women socialists of the U.S.A. organized huge demonstrations and meetings all over the country demanding political rights for working women. This was the first “Woman’s Day”. The initiative of organising a woman’s day thus belongs to the working women of America.”

She wrote that even before the First World War, the food crisis and economic exploitation galvanized the “most peaceful housewife to take an interest in questions of politics and to protest loudly against the bourgeoisie’s economy of plunder”.

In August 1910, inspired by the American women, the Second International Congress of Socialist Women organised in Copenhagen, Denmark, decided to hold the first International Women’s Day on the 19th of March, 1911. 

Celebration of the first Women’s Day

The first International Women’s Day was celebrated across Europe with women taking part in demonstrations. 

Talking about this day Kollontai wrote: “ Women’s Day did achieve something. It turned out above all to be an excellent method of agitation among the less political of our proletarian sisters. They could not help but turn their attention to the meetings, demonstrations, posters, pamphlets, and newspapers that were devoted to Women’s Day. Even the politically backward working woman thought to herself: “This is our day, the festival for working women,” and she hurried to the meetings and demonstrations.”

In 1913, International Women’s Day was moved to March 8 as per the Georgian calendar.

Garment worker’s strike that gave birth to Women’s Day

In the early twentieth century, the garments industry was the single largest employer of women. However, the working women had to grapple with poor working conditions, long work hours, and paltry wages. 

Most of these garment workers were engaged in an internal subcontracting system that made extensive use of homework and marked their positions in the production cycle as learners but not “skilled” labourers, thus they received meagre wages compared to semi-skilled male “operators”.

Their work hours were as long as 75 hours a week and they were in some cases even required to supply their basic materials such as needles and threads. They were fined for being late at work, and during their working hours, they were locked up inside the workshop to stop them from taking breaks.

Their working conditions forced them to go on strike which is known as the New York Shirtwaist Strike of 1909 or the Uprising of the 20,000.

The strike was led by Clara Lemlich, a 23-year-old garment worker, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, and supported by the National Women’s Trade Union League of America (NWTUL).

Clara Lemlich famously said, “I have no further patience for talk. I move we go on a general strike!” at the negotiation table.

Another strike was organised in 1910 by the Chicago women garment workers to protest against a bonus system that demanded a high production rate. This came to be known as the Hart, Schaffner, and Marx (HSM) strike.

These eventually built a consciousness that enabled women workers to demand radical changes in a climate that was also marked by significant workers uprisings in the West. Eventually women were also granted voting right in United States in 1920.

Women marching for ‘Bread and Roses’

The slogan of “Bread and Roses”, was common among the textile workers and women political activists demanding women voting rights. 

It originated in a speech given by American women’s suffrage activist Helen Todd.

Robert J. S. Ross, American sociologist and activist known for his research on global garment trade, wrote that the slogan which means both higher wage and dignified life transcends “the sometimes tedious struggles for marginal economic advances” in the “light of labor struggles as based on striving for dignity and respect”.

In June 1912, Rose Schneiderman, a labour activist of the Women’s Trade Union League of New York, in support of the Ohio women’s campaign for equal suffrage, and equal voting rights, gave a speech remarking on the significance of this phrase.

“What the woman who labours wants is the right to live, not simply exist – the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.”

Women’s Day march and the October Revolution

In 1917, the Women’s Day march of the textile workers in Russia marked the beginning of the October Revolution. Women demanded the end of the First World War and the resultant food shortage including better wages and an end to Tsarist autocracy in Russia.

Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote, “23 February (8th March in the Gregorian calendar) was International Woman’s Day, and meetings and actions were foreseen. But we did not imagine that this ‘Women’s Day’ would inaugurate the revolution.”

Vladimir Lenin declared March 8 as International Women’s Day in 1922 to recognise the women’s role in 1917 Russian Revolution and declared it as holiday.