International Women’s Day

Our New York Times did not arrive this morning, but Google’s Graphic informed me of something I did not know about: March 8 is International Women’s Day and has been celebrated since the beginning of the twentieth century. The first such day in the United States fell on February 28, 1909, sponsored by the Socialist Party of America. Thereafter it was celebrated on different days in different countries, not least March 8. It has been uniformly observed on March 8 since 1977 after a United Nations General Assembly proclamation, that year, of March 8 as the UN Day for women’s rights and world peace. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Let me not to the celebration of woman admit impediments.”

There is also an International Men’s Day, held on November 19 since 1999. It is a day that I intend to observe, now that I know of it, only by benign neglect.

The image I reproduce here (from Wikipedia link) shows a poster for Women’s Day in 1914, in Germany; it was also celebrated on March 8. The slogan is “Go for Women’s Right to Vote.” The imagery is commie red; it looks dated now. Since those muscularly militant days this event has been softened and dressed into an expression of feminism. February 19, 2013 was the 50th anniversary of the appearance of The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan—an event somewhat less dated than gigantic red flags. But, listening to some of the coverage of that anniversary, the recurring observation I’ve picked up is that not enough has changed. Women are not equally present in the visible places—in politics, at the top of corporations. And, as I’ve been noting, from time to time, for decades now, women’s compensation still lags that of men, not least in such professions as law and medicine.

Sound Bites

Shopping trips to distant Costco entertain because I listen to the radio. Thus I learned of the decline, and better yet the end, of men—by which respective authors meant the human male. Women are better educated, more ambitious, have more get up and go, earn more too, and the males, stripped of the role of family provider, evidently throw in the dishtowel, embrace drugs, ennui, porn, and depression.

The contributors (a panel, of course) consisted of two men, a female, and the host—all young and from the chattering class. The host contributed an observation of his own soon after I tuned in. He said that superior male strength no long mattered even in defense. The push of a button sufficed to annihilate the enemy. Then, later, a propos of long term projections, the tutorial female voice pronounced ex cathedra that this trend would inevitably continue. Her tone evoked the phrase “manifest destiny” in me; and I recalled Red hopes of witnessing the dawn of a classless society.

Pops of pop sociology. I wondered what the rangers in Afghanistan might have to say about the need of male strength and endurance as they clambered mountains riding donkeys carrying horrendous packs. I wondered about the lady’s time scale; what would be the status of women in, say, 2075 after the oil has run out? I wondered about the sample, if any, on which the findings of decline and end had been so firmly founded. I wondered how many families, and for how long, could afford the mountainous costs of educating offspring at universities...

A day or so later came news that women still make less money than men in the same jobs—and hence are less likely to be laid off. Poverty numbers flickered on my screen suggesting that the poorest of the poor are single women with children. I learned that the most certain predictor of future earnings was to be raised in a family featuring two parents at home. Pop. Pop. A bite here, a bite there. Snacking on the news. The problem goes deeper than male frustration at the leaven that causes women to rise. So many other things in that batter, I thought, later, and then back in the car again: on blog posts time is elastic, you see. Then, almost arrived at Kroger from Costco, I learned from the panel that marriage is disappearing altogether—except among the rich, where divorce is now evidently in sharp decline.