March 8 might just be any other day, but growing up in an immigrant household, I was raised to associate the day with a kitchen full of flowers and a feast.
Every International Women’s Day (IWD), it was customary for all women in my family to be given flowers as a mark of respect, love, and appreciation. I looking forward to the social gatherings, festivities, and traditions that would bring my entire family together to commemorate the women in our lives.
My parents emigrated from the former Soviet Union as it fell in the early 1990s. They put down new roots in Toronto, bringing their cultural traditions with them. Like many immigrants, they came here with the hope of better opportunity, prosperity, democracy, and the promise of a better future.
Around the world, March 8 is celebrated for women to commemorate how far we’ve come—to unite and further advocate for our rights. It’s a day to be grateful for the excellence and advocacy of the incredible women who fought hard for equal opportunity and the rights we enjoy today.
On this very day in Petrograd, in 1917, outraged women workers demanded “Bread and Peace.” Their demonstrations sparked a people to revolt, eventually inciting the start of the Russian Revolution, but first, it solidified this day in history as IWD.
On Oct. 18, 1929, five Albertan women known as the Famous Five assembled to change the Canadian constitution. Their powerful work coordinated over “tea-time gatherings” led to the first official ruling allowing women to be considered “persons” under the law. This allowed the first woman to be appointed to the senate and set a leading example globally, sparking change for Canada and all Commonwealth nations..
In Iceland on Oct. 24, 1975, 90 per cent of the nation’s female population refused to work. Thanks to the unifying and ingenious organizational efforts of the radical Red Stockings group, the women of the island successfully brought the nation to a standstill. Countless institutions shut down when their women workers took to the streets to unite and protest. Their collective effort led to the first gender equality act for Iceland, and the first woman President, five years later
Yet, gratitude alone isn’t enough if we don’t also reflect on the work that lies ahead on the long road to true gender equality.
Whether it’s considered a public holiday or a day of protest and mobilization, much work still needs to be done in the fight for women’s rights.
This year, we look back on the successes that brought women together in this fight. It’s impossible for us to make changes without leaning on and ing each other—none of the women who’ve shaped today’s privileges made changes alone. They came together, refusing to back down until social attitudes and laws reflected the equality and respect they demanded.
If women are the future, no society can thrive until they’re ed, protected, and uplifted systematically as equals. Great social change is possible, and it starts on the smallest scale, in how closely we , appreciate, and cherish the women in our lives.
So, this Saturday, I encourage you to think about the incredible women who’ve touched your life, in big ways or small, and take a moment to appreciate and celebrate them. I‘ll be calling my mother, aunt, sisters and grandmothers, for I wouldn’t exist without them and everything they’ve done.
Elizabeth is a second-year Film & English student and The Journal’s Assistant Video Editor.
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