Glasgow and International Women's Day.

 

      International Women's Day (March 8) has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies.

1908
Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights.

1909
In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913.

1910
In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.

1911
Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. However less than a week later on 25 March, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labour legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. 1911 also saw women's 'Bread and Roses' campaign.    Read the full article HERE:

   

      Here in our own city of Glasgow can boast an army of women who have fought not just to raise the profile and rights of women, but fought in that greater struggle, the struggle for justice and freedom for all. The early part of the 20th century through the hungry 30's Glasgow had battling heroes such as Mary Barbour, Helen Crawfurd, Agnes Dollan, Jane Hamilton Patrick, Helen Brown Scott Lennox, Ethel MacDonald, and Rita Milton. From then until now there have been many more. Our city and indeed the world, owe a debt to those women who stood and fought against the tide of the conventionalism, injustice and war. 

ann arky's home.

THE POOR ACT 2012!!!

       The poor have always been with us, after all we know that capitalism can't solve the problem of poverty, it doesn't function with that aim in mind. All that happens under capitalism is the the levels of poverty vary from decade to decade. Under capitalism the people have no control how the wealth they create is distributed, the system demands the wealth is always syphoned upwards to the few parasites at the top. The poverty level is like the tide it rise and falls and the policies of those who manage the system for their corporate bosses, can have a direct effect on that poverty. The policies being implemented today are sending millions into poverty and there is the cry from some that we are heading back to the 30's. I have always maintained that the present policies being implemented today by this millionaire cabal at the Westminster Houses of Hypocrisy and Corruption, are not, as some proclaim, returning us to the hungry 30's, but are returning us to the Victorian era. Back to the days of the workhouses, a time when the poor relied on charities and were graded according to “deserving poor” and “undeserving poor”. The “deserving poor” if they were lucky, were given a pittance, for which they had to show extreme gratitude, the “undeserving poor” were to be punished in some way or other until they showed remorse for the errors of their ways.

If only those bloody undeserving poor worked as hard as me.

Think Left has a very good article on this particular line of thought comparing the Poor Act of 1834 with the Workfare 2012.

ann arky's home.