Girl's Guide To Liverpool: International Women's Day
By Billie Walker
Tomorrow is International Women’s Day, a day created to celebrate women which is celebrated in over 100 countries around the world. Its popularity has grown a lot in recent years. With the grassroots organisers who brought together the Women’s March on Washington (which triggered women’s marches across the world) having organised A Day Without A Woman, for International Women’s Day 2017, awareness of this day will most likely skyrocket by next year.
I spoke to Penny Dimond, founder and writer for The New Factory of the Eccentric Actor, who for the last twenty years has produced shows at the Marxist Memorial Library in London to celebrate International Women’s Day. Penny explained her reasons for celebrating and partaking in International Women’s day for the last two decades: “it’s a good time to recognise how far we’ve got and how far we have to go, it’s not stuck in the past it’s aim is to look forward”.
Although it is an over used adage it’s undeniably important that to know where you are going you must know where you have been and most of us are unaware of the origins of IWD. Like a lot of our history, this day’s origins have been retold and edited to maintain a perception. It has been told by many and assumed that it was a day established to mark protests by New York’s garment and textile workers. However it emerged in the 1980s that this origin was manufactured in an effort to separate the day from it’s Socialist roots. It was in fact Russian women who left their factories and took the streets on March 8th 1917 to march for “Bread and Peace”. In Russia’s then capital Petrograd the Army backed demonstrators the Tsar to be toppled and as a result of the days events women were granted suffrage. In the early years of International Women’s Day all celebrates and protests were organised by communist and socialist movements in Europe. However as the day has grown in popularity, the political aspects of it have changed to be part of all women’s movements not just that with socialist political aims. Many events today are celebratory rather than political, which is why it is great to know that the creators of the Women’s March will be bringing the day back to it’s roots of protest.
There are many events happening all across Liverpool throughout March to celebrate women, looking at their influence, stories and power. The Girl Geeks are supporting and promoting the empowerment of women with their event at FACT in which they will be showing the film Code Girl, with a panel discussing ways we can be bold for change. When I asked Chelsea Slater, Co-Founder of Girl Geeks why this day was important to GG: "International Women's day is more than a news feed full of love for inspirational and courageous women. There are thousands of events all over the world that bring us together through workshops, debates and discussions around the subject of inequality that still exists in the world. We've made a lot of progress over the last 50 years however it's important to know that we're still fighting, marching and taking action. IWD is a way we can be heard."
Liverpool Small Cinema is another of our cities great independent business, they are endless advocates for the representation of women in film. Over the last year with their ongoing initiative showing and celebrating the 58%, those films made by women trans and non-binary filmmakers. This year for IWD they are celebrating middle-eastern women with two showings tomorrow evening. Kicking off with Balls, Barriers and Bulldozers, which looks at woman’s football tour to West Bank Palestine. Followed by Speed Sisters, the story of the first all-women racecar driving team in the Middle East. All in all it looks as if the Liverpool Small Cinema will be hosting a very energetic night!
I often feel so happy to have chosen Liverpool as my home, as it is host to so many strong communities of women, which celebrate each other throughout the year such as the Grrrl Power art collective. In their own words they seek: “to readdress the gender inequalities in contemporary art, literature and music. Over the last four years women have consistently made up around 63% of creative art and design graduates in the UK, but earn up to £2,000 less then men working within the art sector.” To them International Women’s Day is important because of the issues it brings to our attention such as the unfair pay gap, Grrrl Power Liverpool argue “women are just as creative, hard-working and valuable as men, and this needs to be recognised and reflected not just in the work place, but also in wider society.” They are currently in the midst of the Lonely Girl Phenomenology creating an online archive of essays on sexism experienced “by women and non-binary people within the realms of relationships, romance and love”.
An event that I am personally looking forward to on Saturday is Gal-Dem’s talk at the International Slavery Museum. It will address the creation of the magazine they have created to “champion the writing of ‘women of color’”, as well as an exploration of the “erasure of Black Women in History”. Women’s influence in Britain has so often been eradicated and as I strongly believe that is our responsibility readdress history to fix the tale we have been told.
With so many amazing events to go to around Liverpool, addressing so many different subjects such women in history, women in sport and women in tech it almost feels as if their should be more than just one day a year in which women should be celebrated. I am extremely grateful to groups such as Girl Geeks, Liverpool Small Cinema, Grrrl Power and Gal-Dem and many others who have made it their mission to continuously celebrate and empower all women. For all those not fortunate enough to live in Liverpool, the International Women’s Day website is a great way to find out what is happening in your city. Whether you are using this day to protest, give back, or learn something new I am wishing you all a great International Women’s day I hope it leaves you feeling empowered for the whole year!
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