International Women's Day- Ladies, "civility"

Brothers, sisters, comrades, I have to apologise for not getting something on the blog about International Women's Day. But better late than never as they say.  So I went and retrieved a previous posting and if anyone wants to read more on this that Facts For Working People has published simply do a search at the top of the page. Search women or sexism.

So I am posting this short piece from my friend and comrade Wendy Forrest in Toronto that FFWP posted in 2009. I like it. Thanks to Peggy Cormeny for the pictures from a women's day event in Springfield Illinois last week.

By Wendy Forrest in Toronto

International Women's Day is almost here and in Toronto and cities around the world today and tomorrow there will be marches and celebrations.

It was Clara Zetkin , a revolutionary woman, a comrade and friend of the great revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg, who put out the call to remember and honour women workers and highlight the unique struggles of women within the larger struggles of the working class.

There will be many speeches and celebrations today and tomorrow honouring women internationally.

But on this blog and on this Day I am thinking about about the power of language to intimidate and oppress, to quickly "shut up." and shut down.

A reader may wonder how I could take this apparently small issue or theme and make it relevant to IWD.

This week a co-worker called me "ballsy" when I spoke up to a MD who was very rude to me and by implication to my co-workers. In the past I have been called "bolshie" and brave but never "ballsy." I was offended and raised the question why, when I as a woman have no "balls" would my confidence in challenging this extremely small and commonplace example of the continual belittling of my work and again by implication the work of all nurses and "lesser beings" "workers" in the health care hierarchy, be seen as a male attribute or strength rather than a strength as a confident worker. I raised this in a friendly manner , as it was meant to be a compliment , and it was received thoughtfully.

This week I have also been unable to cast from my mind Hilary Clintons statement on the proposed demolition of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem- I believe she said it was not "helpful." She did not say it was "atrocious" or even "provocative" - just "unhelpful." What a "civil" word. I raged a little at work when I read that and a brief conversation around language and its power to shape ideas evolved.

Then today I was reading a comment from the President of York University , where there are very serious and angry protests around the Campaign Against Israeli Apartheid , and how he called for "civility." The chief complaint coming from the university administration being that these protests were loud and a bullhorn used and that students , newly back to classes after a long and brave strike on the part of contract worker/student/ teachers were unable to concentrate on their classwork beacsue of the "noise." Several organizers were cenured and censored for not being CIVIL.

I hate this word just like I hate the word term LADY. Unbelieveably still in common usage it bears within it layers of oppresssion and hate just as does the word "civil."

There are many meanings for civil and they all originate in what the ruling classes see as appropriate behaviour. Civil society is a calm and complacent society where the rules and institutions , actions and manners of the elite ruling class prevail. If we challenge these rules and institutions we are "churlish" , acting like "peasants."

When "Ladies" act like women , we are challenging the rules and institutions of patriarchy. To this day the word woman can conjure up notions of unbridled sexuality and coarseness , seduction and irrational emotional hormonally driven "hysterical " behaviour.

This may seem a stretch for younger people to believe but just scratch the surface and underneath every woman is a LADY in waiting to be transformed by the patriarchy into a complacent and obedient UNCIVIL being.

And underneath every "churlish" outspoken worker is a wage slave waiting to be bridled.

And underneath the homes demolished in occupied Palestine and Occupied areas of Jerusalem are working families and their children who as members of the international working class have most in common with the working class in Israel.

Today working class women who have acted in unlady like fashion and in a churlish manner , who have walked the picket lines and fought on the front lines of struggle against the killer capitalist class and the lords of feudalism in the past , must rebel against civility, against the partriarchalcapitalist masters and just be "ballsy" .

Enough Already.