This is what's wrong with Women's Day
It’s not even 8am and I have already been bombarded with at least 20 Happy Women’s Day messages.
Some from friends (bless them and their WhatsApp groups) and some from strangers selling their products (Nimrat Kaur quoting Maya Angelou to promote her new Alt Balaji series. Sonakshi Sinha promoting her new film Noor, based on Saba Imtiaz’s Karachi You’re Killing Me, and Vodafone selling connectivity).
Everyone has a cutesy hashtag — #BeBoldForChange, #ConnectedSheCan, even just #Noor. Everyone has an empowering message, even our Dear Leader who has taken time off from canvassing in Uttar Pradesh, and saluted Nari Shakti on International Women’s Day.
Some want to pamper us with spa packages on this day (really, and who will hold the universe together while we’re off doing that on a busy Wednesday?) and others just want to fill space — a story on women hosts on Airbnb, the launch of a MURA handloom portal by the minister of textiles, even the somnolent Ashok, symbol of PSU sloth, giving us 30 per cent discount on food and drink (so very kind) and wanting us to write about it.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe women should be free to celebrate as many days they wish to, whether it is Women’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Karva Chauth. After centuries of being sidelined and undermined, a few days dedicated to us in an ocean of 365 are not such a big deal.
| I believe women should be free to celebrate as many days they wish to, whether it is Women’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Karva Chauth. |
What I object to is the rampant commercialisation.
Yes, Chinmayi Sripada, I really like your message that #RapeThreatsAreNotOk and the fact that you’ve started a change.org petition, but why wait till today? Yes, PHD Chamber, excellent that you think a Women Start-Up Summit is essential, but why only today?
And Forevermark, I like your pretty but unaffordable nose pin collection, but why only today? Super International Fertility Centre, that you want to discuss women’s issues like “pregnancy and career”, but perhaps another day?
And that’s just some of the mails and notifications in my inbox/Twitter feed/Facebook posts. Before FMCG manufacturers discovered Women’s Day it had a history of actual change.
In London there was a march from Bow to Trafalgar Square in support of women's suffrage on March 8, 1914. Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested in front of Charring Cross station on her way to speak in Trafalgar Square.
In 1917 demonstrations marking International Women's Day in Saint Petersburg on the last Thursday in February (which fell on March 8 on the Gregorian calendar) initiated the February Revolution. After the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949 the state council proclaimed on December 23 that March 8 would be made an official holiday with women in China given a half-day off.
The day, as we have it now, comes to us courtesy the United Nations General Assembly, which invited member states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for women’s rights and world peace. I don’t see much of that revolutionary fervour in the frantic requests to carry a story/avail of our offer/be our guest/attend our seminar/have our cake that women in the workforce are flooded with.
So kind, so kind, but where are you when women want to avail of full maternity benefits, any possible help with childcare, problems with overfriendly male bosses, and just plain negotiation of equal pay for equal work? Ah, those are gender-neutral issues, if you want to be in the workplace you have to follow all the rules set by men.
Right, right. How could I forget, step out of line, rock the boat, unsettle the apple cart (something tells me I should be hashtagging all these phrases if I want to be read).
So women of the world, unite. Unite against this forced celebration of a day dedicated to you. You have nothing to lose but one more day where it’s business as usual, and you’re just muddling along, balancing home and work, children and bosses, study plans and official targets, and trying to look cool in whatever the fashion of the moment is (What? I can’t wear my yoga pants to work? Says who?)
And if you never hear from me again, you’ll know that the International Women’s Day Thought Police has dragged me away for re-education. When I come back I might just be a Happy Women’s Day fan. Till then, #SayNoToJustOneDay.