United Nations has been a champion of women’s rights

International Women’s Day is a major global event that will be widely celebrated in some countries and virtually ignored in others. In Latin America, el Día Internacional de la Mujer is important. It is popularly observed in most, if not all, countries by women and men from all walks of life.

On March 8, I will receive countless messages from friends and colleagues in Cuba and Guatemala, two countries where I have spent a considerable amount of time.

Women — young, old, politically engaged or blissfully disinterested in politics — will congratulate me and other women on “our day.”

Yet in Canada, I feel International Women’s Day (IWD) is largely irrelevant. In fact. I have never had anyone in Canada or the US wish me a Happy International Women’s Day. It just doesn’t seem to resonate in the same way that it does in Latin America. Why is this the case? It’s likely attributable to the different contexts in which IWD takes place, and the different political and cultural meanings that the day of celebration and protest has assumed.

The first IWD was celebrated in New York City in 1909 to commemorate the march for women’s rights that had taken place in that same city the previous year. These activities were part of the struggle for women’s suffrage, which was slowly extended to women around the world in the early 20th century. They were also part of the broader struggle for women’s labour and economic rights, an agenda that was likely viewed as communist propaganda.

Then in 1975, the year of the first United Nations Conference on Women, the UN began an annual recognition and celebration of IWD.

The significance of the UN’s involvement is undeniable for countries in Latin America and for women’s movements in that region. Many activists within global and Latin American women’s movements credit the UN and its declarations and conferences for improvements in women’s rights and addressing gender discrimination.

The UN’s resources have enabled women to pressure otherwise unresponsive governments for social and political change. The UN continues to be the main global advocate of IWD. It organises activities and highlights the continued struggle for women’s rights and gender justice.

The 2018 theme is “Time is Now: Rural and Women’s Activists Transforming Women’s Lives.” It connects women’s struggles to the UN’s sustainable development goals and states that: “International Women’s Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history.”

This recognises a prolonged and communal struggle for women, one that is reflective of historical and continued experiences of women in Latin America. For women in North America, current experiences are perhaps better captured in the explanation on the UN Women website that IWD 2018 “comes on the heels of unprecedented global movement for women’s rights, equality and justice.”

It notes that the movement “has taken the form of global marches and campaigns, including #MeToo and #TimesUp in the US and their counterparts in other countries, on issues ranging from sexual harassment and femicide to equal pay and women’s political representation.”

While this is a timely and engaging articulation of the theme, it is focused on very recent and highly contested political events, and suggests that the struggle for gender justice is fractured and individualised.

It’s also interesting to note that there is a competing global IWD campaign, supported not by the UN but by a conglomerate of corporate and non-governmental organisations. Its theme is #PressForProgress, which is a fairly diluted call to action, one that is aimed primarily at women in countries of the Global North.

The importance of the UN, the significance of its sustainable development goals and the cultural understanding of enduring historical struggles for peace, justice and human and women’s rights in Latin America culminate in annual IWD celebrations.

Women everywhere have low status relative to men. This is a global phenomenon and there are no exceptions. There are, of course, individual women who defy this gender subordination, but women as a social category do not.

There is much work to be done in Canada. There is much work to be done everywhere.

The time is now.

—The Conversation Candace Johnson Professor of Political Science, University of Guelph

The UN’s resources have enabled women to pressure otherwise unresponsive governments for social and political change.