OPINION: Regaining a Better World for Our Women and Children

by Cindy Domingo

International Women’s Day (IWD) always reminds me of my sister, Eileen Nelson, an elderly African American woman who worked in downtown Seattle as a grocer and longtime Seattle resident. The year was 1999 and the location was Havana, Cuba. Eileen and I were members of a national delegation of the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), an international women’s peace organization that has been working to end the US blockade against Cuba for over 60 years.

The day after our arrival in Havana was International Women’s Day and everywhere we were greeted with “Happy International Women’s Day”, flowers, songs, smiles and hugs. Two women from our delegation were even walking along the Malecon (Havana’s sea wall) later that night when they were approached by a Havana police officer. The policeman surprised the frightened women and said with a smile: “Happy International Women’s Day!” We ended this second day in Cuba and were proud of who we were as women and what contributions women have made worldwide.

However, Eileen also said something that has stayed with me over these two decades. She said to the Cuban women: “Why did I have to come all the way to Cuba to find out about International Women’s Day, especially since its beginnings had to do with women workers who were killed in the USA?”

IWD Celebration Poster from 2003 (Courtesy Cindy Domingo)

From about 2001 to 2007, here in Seattle, a handful of women from various organizations, including myself, planned one-day IWD celebrations at the Seattle Center each year. The celebrations included cultural performances, speeches and literature tables with information on national and international campaigns on issues of empowerment for women, peace and social justice. We hoped that those present, especially women and girls, would work for equality and the empowerment of women and girls.

While IWD celebrations were successful events in the past, they haven’t been attended by the thousands of people we see now at mainstream IWD events. For example, the March 1973 issue of the radical Asian-American publication Asian Family Affair contained an IWD article by Cynthia Lee that listed some IWD events on the UW campus. Hosted by the Abortion Action Coalition and the Campus Abortion Committee, these events included a number of speakers on sex work, women in unions, and the Equal Rights Amendment. I suspect they were mostly attended by students and mostly women.

IWD Celebration Poster from 2011 (Courtesy Cindy Domingo)

Fast forward 20 years. Today, International Women’s Day is becoming mainstream and commercialized, spread across advertising and media. That March 8th, Kate Spade greeted me with Happy International Women’s Day ads saying, “Let’s save each other today and every day.” At the bottom of the ad, of course, was a white square that marked the Prompted readers to find a business. Aveda’s IWD ad stated that March would highlight “the inner and outer strengths of exceptional women” as part of the Month of Women’s History, and then suggested using Aveda products that strengthen hair care routines could “get into your strength”. In the IWD advertisement “Be the Change” of the Banana Republic it was offered to donate part of the proceeds from the sale of the “Notorious Necklace”, which is believed to be named after the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, to the International Center for Women’s Studies. is named.

I could go on and on, but I’m sure you’ll get my drift. I am disappointed that IWD is being popularized and disseminated by corporate media and large corporations. When I think about how much IWD has changed over the past few decades, I find that something is being lost – that I yearn to build a community that used to be brought about by organizing International Women’s Day celebrations.

My wish is that we will continue to popularize IWD without losing the true meaning of International Women’s Day. that the US Eileen Nelsons will understand the radical beginnings of the IWD in the US and Europe; that it was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York on March 25, 1911, in which 146 young workers, most of whom were immigrants, were killed that has become firmly established in history in today’s IWD events.

We as a women’s movement seem to be making great strides on our women’s rights agenda. But sometimes, especially given the disproportionate economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women, I wonder if we are taking big steps backwards for women. The recent murders in Atlanta, Georgia, as a result of mounting hate crimes against Asians, are a reminder that working women face violence every day of their lives. The shooter killed six Asian women – soon to be Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Yue, Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng – and two more, Delaina Ashley Yaun and Paul Andre Michels.

It reminds me more than ever of the importance of International Women’s Day. I don’t want to let the American company steal the most important day for women in the US and around the world. A day on which we celebrate our cultural, scientific, social and economic contributions, but also dedicate ourselves again to the struggle for equality, peace and development. I know Corporate America won’t promote this type of IWD, but we can anyway! We can use social media and our networks to establish the true IWD from past to present, especially for vulnerable working class women today.

I am determined to keep the heart and soul of IWD for future generations. Eileen and my former co-chair of past IWD events at the Seattle Center, Lika Smith, have already said, “Let’s do it!” We are ready to organize IWD in the context of its true history and mission. We have no choice if we want to regain hope that a better world is possible for women and children and thus for our entire society.

International Women’s Day 2022, here we come …

Cindy Domingo is Chair of A Legacy of Equality Leadership and Organizing (LELO) and has been committed to the human rights of women since attending the historic United Nations International Women’s Conference in Beijing, China, in 1995.

Feature image attributed to Roberto Trombetta under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC 2.0).

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