“A man should never argue with a woman as he will always lose. This is what my mother told me and she was right because she was a wise woman.”
--The Japanese soldier Hiroo Onada who fought on for 30 years and surrendered in 1975.
.
“Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip!”
--Nietzshe, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
.
"Who is more dutiful than I? I put a strap across my breast to carry you from one place to another, and keep you out of all the piss and shit. I don't know of any duty a man's son could do for his mother that I don't do for you, except for making that humming tune that women make. Since I can't do that humming tune, I will make a harp made for you to delight you, with a strap of white bronze."
"If that were so," she said, “your dutifulness would be good. But that is not the duty I mean, but rather the freeing of women from encounter and encampment, from expedition and hosting, from wounding and slaughter, and from the slavery of the cauldron."
--From Adomain's “Law of the Innocents,” when the mother appeals to Saint Adomnain to go out and fight for women's rights by enforcing a new law to protect women and children from oppression in Ireland { From page 9 of Adomnan's “Law of the Innocents: A 7th Century Law for the Protection of Non-combatants,” translated with an introduction by Gilbert Markus OP, published by Blackfriars Books, 1997, Glasgow.
.
.
The celebration of International Women's Day is here once again. Advocates of women's rights gather to discuss, debate and raise questions of how women all around the world continue to face all kinds of injustice such as verbal and physical abuse, violence, unequal pay and the failure to fully acknowledge the priceless contribution women have made to the arts, science, culture and how to empower those without real rights.
In Russia, this celebration has largely been depoliticized, commercialized and reduced to a gift giving custom resembling Mother's Day in the west. The radical origins of such a day have been largely obscured and overlooked in Russia.
'Are you visiting Woman? Do not forget your whip!' declared the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in his work 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' {page 93 of Nietzsche's “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” London: Penguin Classics, 1969}. This might have sounded amusing to some ignorant people but in Russia and many other countries the whip remains a sinister symbol which was often used to badly beat up and even murder any woman who stepped out of line by disobeying or challenging the authority of their fathers and husbands. The whip was even viewed as a wedding gift from the father to his new son in law at their wedding so that the husband could enforce his authority just as her father had once done.
However, this custom was even too much for Peter the Great! In 1702 he passed a decree ordering the handing over the whip to be replaced by a kiss. He further banned arranged marriages, demanded marriages be voluntary and that potential brides and bridegrooms meet each other for 6 weeks before any wedding. One of the customs at a Russian wedding is for the guests to shout out 'Gorka' {meaning 'It is bitter' again and again until the married couple drive away the bitterness by sweetly kissing.} But wouldn't it be wonderful if married couples could contain and drive away much of the bitterness which can poison marriage and lead in turn to abuse?
The origins of International Women's Day can still stir debate. Some say the real origins of this day go back to 1909 in New York City, where Americans wanted to remember the garment worker's strike. But most people fix the date in 1910, when the German socialist Clara Zetkin suggested to the Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen that they create a special day to honor women. But it was in Russia that the celebration of this day on the March 8th {23rd February by another calendar}, played a significant part in creating a revolution. On this day women took to the streets of Saint Petersburg calling for peace and bread.
Russian women take to the streets to protest war and bad working conditions.
.
They were also protesting at the terrible conditions in factories as a result of the war effort.
You might argue that it was women who were the catalysts of the Russian revolution and not Lenin who was in Zurich or other revolutionaries who had long dismissed the prospect of a revolution. It is interesting to note that the Cossacks used whips to drive away any demonstrators. But the Cossacks had forgotten their whips! So they were impotent in the face of militant women! The historian Orando Figes wrote, “By some oversight they had not been supplied with their usual whips. It was to prove a fatal mistake by the authorities. For this show of weakness by the Cossacks emboldened the workers over the coming days” {page 308 , Orando Figes, “A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, London: Bodly Head, 2017 edition}.
Following this revolution an estimated 6000 Russian women served as soldiers at the front against the Germans. And approximately 18,000 Russian women served as nurses during the First World War, where many of them died on the front line {see Laurie S. Stoff “They Fought for the Motherland: Russia's Women Soldiers in World War I and the Revolution, University Press of Kansas, 2006}.
Unfortunately, the original aim of International Women's Day has been largely forgotten and overlooked. Now this is mainly a day where men are obliged to shower women with flowers, gifts and make a few toasts honoring them. Every time on the eve of this day you can notice some men frantically rushing around the streets in search of flowers or gifts for women. There is nothing wrong with this.
However, I think Feminists are correct in insisting on this day being something much more meaningful and profound. That we should use this day to inspire men and women to seriously reflect and address how we might improve the condition of women. For instance, how might we better share domestic obligations, allow for women to obtain equal pay and make life more pleasant for women? We should also question some misleading notions.
For example, 'feminism’ is not a dirty word in Russia—and feminism is not synonymous with fascism! Feminists are not all angry, aggressive and at war with men. Feminists simply want equal pay for doing the same work as men, want to be treated with respect and not as an 'object.'
What man wants to receive low pay? What man wants to be treated as just an object or thing to be used and manipulated by other people? What is unreasonable about being allowed to go jogging in safety without the danger of being assaulted and even murdered? Everyone should be entitled to respect and dignity. Now we are witnessing a horrific situation in Gaza, and in many parts of the World where women and children are being slaughtered by discriminate and indiscriminate mass bombing. So the first aim of this celebration is to address and act against all this oppression where women are not viewed equally or at all!
Secondly, the aim of International Women's Day is to remind people that women, like men, have made a great contribution to developing art, science, and culture. We should not play down or dismiss this contribution. In this regard I think it is instructive to look at the great role women have played in developing art. Just look at the Impressionists who decided to go out and paint a new kind of genre in the open air where they attempted to capture an immediate impression on the spot rather than an exact likeness. Those artists were not just men like Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Pissarro to name but a few, but included accomplished female artists such as Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot.
If we take into the account the history of the Russian Avant-Garde of the first quarter of the 20th century, you'll also come across outstanding female artists such as Natalia Gontcharova, whose painting 'Winter. Picking Brushwood,” {1911} attempts to portray the beauty of laborers and Winter in an entirely novel way. And we might also mention Olga Rozanova, Lyubov Popova and Yelena Guro.
Very few people are aware that the main person behind developing Gorky Park in Moscow during the 1930's was a woman called Betta Glan. Under her leadership she turned Gorky Park into one of the most innovative and unique parks in the whole world. Such is her influence that even today her overall principles are still applied. She was without doubt a genius!
In the Park of Sculpture nearby you can be mesmerized by the monument created by the sculptor Vera Mukhina titled 'We demand peace' {1951}. The art historian Natalie P. stated, “This monument is very unique because it portrays the victims of war not as superheroes who are fearless giants as in most Soviet war monuments but as just ordinary people who are vulnerable, fragile and in great pain. A Korean Woman is seen wailing while carrying her dead baby in outstretched hands, a German invalid is given a salute and a leading woman carrying a baby is letting a dove go. At the time it was made, many people did not approve of this monument. They wanted the portrayal of more heroic figures such as a fearless fighter with a gun like ‘Fight to the Death' by Yevgeni Vuchetich” {1957}.
Those great achievements by female artists should be acknowledged and viewed with awe. But because we live in a highly competitive society, successful women are sometimes viewed as a threat. Why see another person as a threat?
We are all different and unique. It is absurd to compare yourself with another person because you are different from others. Only a society which is over-competitive and their members feel insecure about their own unique path of development is capable of denigrating the great achievements of women. We should encourage and welcome other women to develop their own talents and creativity rather than view them as some sort of threat. The fact is greater rights for women is not a threat to men but would also lead to their freedom.
By encouraging women to be creative we can share their joy and also become inspired to find our own way or voice! Why do we often perceive the struggle for women's freedom as incompatible with a new sense of freedom also attained by men?
On this day I think it is also worth mentioning the men who support the cause of women's rights! I was lucky to make the acquaintance of a brilliant storyteller called Mara Menzies. She visited Moscow in 2019 and told us about how her own grandfather had lost his life fighting for the rights of women in Kenya. Her grandfather tried to get his daughters access to education—which some in her family opposed. Women were expected to become wives and mothers and not receive an education. This courage provoked the outrage of his relatives who poisoned him to death. His daughters were forced to flee for safety. Mara told me "I am very proud of what my family did. I respect them and I am very inspired by them."
The folk tale which Mara told was very instructive. The story was about a boy who was kidnapped by fairies and kept as a slave in the forest. But a brave woman who enters the forest where Tam Lin dwells, plucks a flower, and dares to challenge him and they then fall in love with each other. And the strong Heroine Janet rescues him from bewitched slavery.
I think there might be a moral to this story. The moral is that the freedom Janet kept was not a threat to Tam. In fact, her very freedom released Tam from his own slavery!