Thursday, 21 March 2024 — The Tricontinental
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
8 March was not always International Women’s Day, nor has there always
been any such day at all. The idea emerged from the Socialist International (also known as the Second International), where Clara Zetkin of the German Social Democratic Party and others fought from 1889 to hold a day to celebrate working women’s lives and struggles. Zetkin, alongside Alexandra Kollontai of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, sustained a struggle with their comrades to recognise the role of working women and the role of domestic labour in the creation of social wealth. In a context in which women across the North Atlantic states did not have the right to vote, these women intervened in a debate that was taking place among delegates of the Socialist International over whether men and women workers must be united under the banner of socialism to fight against their shared experience of exploitation or
whether women should stay home.
Tony Blair with KLA leader and now-indicted war criminal Hashim Thaci
The New Dark Age 