It’s international Women’s Day- 2016

By SJ Otto

It is international Women’s Day. For a brief history of the day, I repeat an article from February 27, 2011, posted both on this site and Wichita Peace and Freedom Party Examiner:

International Women’s Day was declared following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911. International Women's Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, March 19. 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. This 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.
Since that year Women’s Day is now celebrated all over the world, on or near March 8. It is celebrated in many countries, including China.

Some important Women of history:

Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theoretician from Germany. From Wikipedia: “She was, successively, a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania(SDKPiL), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), and theCommunist Party of Germany (KPD).

In 1915, after the SPD supported German involvement in World War I, she and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the anti-war Spartakusbund ("Spartacus League"), which eventually became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the November Revolution she co-founded the newspaper Die Rote Fahne ("The Red Flag"), the central organ of theSpartacist movement.”

Emma Goldman Was a famous anarchist writer and political activists. She was portrayed in the movie Reds, 1981.

Louise Michel played a major role in the leadership of the Paris Commune. According to Wikipedia: She was a French anarchist, school teacher, medical worker, and important figure in the Paris Commune.^[1] She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre.

Jiang Qing 江青, was the last wife of Mao Zedong, in the People’s Republic of China. She rose to an important role of leadership the Cultural Revolution. She was a political activist after that, promoting proletariat culture, art and literature. She led the left faction of the Communist Party of China. She was also put on trial after Mao’s death in 1976. She and the so called “Gang of Four” were arrested and tried by the right-wing faction of the party in an attempt to disgrace her and the other defendants. She defied the courts and told them “It is right to rebel!”

Other famous quotes: “Break the chains. Unleash the fury of Women as a mighty force for revolution.”

“I want to be politically young forever.”