IWD - do you get the feeling it's missing the point a bit?

[LtGreggs]

International Women's Day. ALL the UK-focused coverage is about women's status is business/politics and encouraging women leaders in industry. Which is fine. But there seems to be absolutely nothing about raising the status of or unhiding women's roles in the family & caring, or talking about any more radical viewpoint that doesn't involve women just "getting better at what men traditionally did". None at all.

The IWD agenda just seems quite superficial? Or naive? (Or imagined up by a man?!)

TBF I've heard some coverage of women's rights from an international perspective, focusing on third world / poverty issues, which is great but kind of a different sector of thing.

Yes - but we let it happen.

I posted about this earlier [https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3527755-Why-did-the-UN-and-women-s-groups-stand-by-while-big-business-co-opted-International-Women-s-Day]

sorry - still not used to mumsnet strange coding patterns.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3527755-Why-did-the-UN-and-women-s-groups-stand-by-while-big-business-co-opted-International-Women-s-Day

Thank you - am going to read some of your links now.

And you're right about complicitness too. I totally had my LinkedIn post out there this morning (I run a small business). And I sat on my hands a few times today (on LinkedIn and Times website, that I remember) and did not post comments about how this whole shebang was missing the point. Because that would be my head above the parapet.

I had similar thoughts when reading a current running thread about a new mum struggling to get out of the house and deal with a new pushchair on her own.

Men just don't have to deal with that shit on the same scale women do on a day to day basis. They are bigger and stronger and more able to deal with the pushchairs that have most likely been designed by other men with man sized hands and car boots that have been tested by man sized people.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3527573-first-time-out-with-baby-feel-like-i-ll-never-leave-the-house-again

Women’s day initial came about as a response to Veterans Day. Veterans Day was obviously about celebrating veterans but eventually became a day for celebrating mennin general. Likewise women’s day is about celebrating women in general. You give flowers to all the important women in your life and pause to think about how great they are for being themselves. This notion of comparing women against men and celebrating women’s progress into ‘male’ activities is a very western concept and ruins what is actually a really nice day for celebrating ones family and friends.

@pastabest as a tall woman I can promise you they aren’t geared towards man sized people.

Yes I was just pondering this. The website included pics of several me. It just sort of looked like a business page. The other image I've seen is a cartoon of a collection of diverse women with dusters in their hair (like a housewife) including one man.

Ah it's a take on the war poster of women rolling up their sleeves. Still not sure what the purpose of the man is?

Something doesn't sit right.

*Included several pics of men!

What doesn't sit quite right is the implied message of "we'll let you in whatever your disadvantage (woman, wheelchair, colour, religion) because we say never mind to your bad luck" - ie there is a focus on the 'otherness'. Constantly poking at the otherness. Not just acknowledging that what we experience is mainstreamness and maybe we need to reframe what mainstream is.

Being a man in business is not normal or average. What percentage of the UK population is a man in business? It's a chunk, but it's not a majority.

@pastabest - have you read The Women's Room? Great book - and it has a scene describing how she organises her pushchair which has always stuck vividly in my mind as great piece of writing about how big a deal that is to her at the time.

GregoryPeckingDuck

Cant imagine where you got the idea the IWD was a copy of veterans day!

It started as anything but that. It's origins are radical socialism and trade union rights!

See www.un.org/en/events/womensday/history.shtml

That's why I made the joke on my thread (which nobody commented on) that it is ironic that of all places what was then the Soviet Union turned it into a day to think that women's double burden of work could be bought of with one day of them being handed flowers. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3527755-Why-did-the-UN-and-women-s-groups-stand-by-while-big-business-co-opted-International-Women-s-Day

It is only in the last decade or so that capitalism / commercialism has stepped in an coopted it. And unfortunately there is so little respect for women's history that some younger women have just accepted that's what it is.

LtGreggs

It does seem that women's groups who are involved with or are representative of women from developing countries seem to have retained an understanding of the purpose of international women's day.

It's noticeable if you look at this list of events here www.womensgrid.org.uk/?p=8674

It just seems that western capitalist countries just seduce people, including women, into thinking everything should be turned into something you consume, and rely on others to create it.

Honestly, I don't think there is anything that doesn't get co-opted into the slick marketing machine. Feminism, IWD, even period poverty is just going to get munched up into a slogan to sell stuff.

I am not sure I was aware it existed until I saw references on here a couple of years ago. I don't know what the point of it is. I've never paid any attention to it except this year. The Law Society was doing a photo shoot of Women in Law and I thought I should go along- not because it is IWD but I'm a member of a policy committee and one of the regulatory committees so I thought I should show willing.

2 of the female assistants came with me. On the way back one said she didn't see the point of IWD and mentioned there wasn't a men's day . The other said that's because every day is their day.

There is an international men's day, in November. I really confused my male colleagues by wishing them happy international men''s day last year.

It has felt pretty meaningless this year. I am not sure if all my male colleagues were even aware. We had a nice tea with HR earlier in the week where they preached to the converted about all the barriers facing us, and I felt like shouting, "you need to involve all the men, who haven't been told about unconscious bias, they're the ones who need to fix it, not those of us who suffer the results if the male-dominated workplace culture." I can't afford to piss HR off any more, though.

Oddly, it appears to be the only company event I've ever been to which hasn't had a follow-up feedback form.