Two years ago today, I started blogging. I like to think I’ve come a long way and expanded my thinking since then–if I wasn’t growing, I’d merely be stagnant, after all.
The reason I started blogging, on International Women’s Day of all days, was because this was a day where the voices of women are actually listened to by those who claim to be on our side. It’s “our” day, is International Women’s Day. The mainstream media trots out a few white women to make some pithy statements, the news will report on some events, and maybe, just maybe, the police will try not to club in a few heads at any mass gatherings.
For that one day of the year, women’s voices at least appear to matter, and there is at least a pretence that they are listened to. A veneer of solidarity is painted over the fact that actually, society at large, still doesn’t really give a fuck.
Women’s issues are still someone else’s issues as far as those who set the agenda are concerned. Even within the examination of women’s issues, there is still precious little examination of how this intersects with other oppressions–this can be seen all too often among a certain sort of feminist outright rejecting intersectional thinking.
All oppression is not the same. All women’s oppression is not the same. When we ask for equality, it is simply not enough. What use is equality when the playing field is so grossly uneven that gender is but one set of bumps in the turf?
We don’t need equality; we need solidarity. Solidarity with all of these struggles for recognition, for rights, for freedom. And it’s not enough to make the right noises one day a year: it needs to be a perpetual attack on the whole broken system until we can all live in dignity.
One day a year won’t unfuck this mess.
Another angry woman 
I’ve just posted something on similar lines on my blog!
http://evestemptations.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/international-womens-day/
Yes I agree with you, women’s struggles cannot be divorced from wider struggles, patriarchy did not arise in an ahistorical vacuum unconnected to socio-economic structures. Sororal Greetings to you on International Women’s Day
I started Tweeting a few years back, I used to label myself as a feminist but, thanks to Tweeters such as yourself, I sat the fuck back and educated myself. I ally myself to Feminism, read what women experience and recognise my privilege. I use that privilege to try and eliminate that privilege. It’s a man’s job, who considers himself an ally, to do what they can to ensure that Women’s voices matter every day of the year. I guess I mean I show Solidarity, as much as a white heterosexual male can, and respect women only spaces and use them as the valuable education they are. Sorry if that isn’t coherent.