Hey - Happy International Women's Day! This is a holiday we don't really celebrate here in the U.S., except as part of "National Women's History Month," but it's widely celebrated in Russia as a day to honor women, especially working women. One of the consequences of Communism was that a large number of women work outside the home. I've seen estimates that about 90% of Russian women have paid employment. On International Women's Day working women get presents, flowers, and sometimes the day off of work.

It's actually kind of ironic we don't celebrate this holiday in the U.S. because it was invented here in 1908 by the Socialist Party. It was to help support suffrage for women. They named March 8 the one day of the year to focus on helping women get the vote. This date changed to the last Sunday in February, and February of 1909 and 1910 Socialist women in the U.S. held mass meetings.

In 1910 the international Conference of Socialist Women it was proposed that the American day be made international - thus International Women's day was born.

Fast forward to March 1917 - Russia is on the verge of Revolution. Here's what the National Women's History Project had to say about the events of that fateful day:

Coming on the rise of long struggle and many strikes, International Women’s Day 1917 inspired thousands of Russian women to leave their homes and factories to protest the terrible shortages of food, the high prices, the world war, and the increased suffering they had a bitterly endured. The protest inspired the last push of a revolution. A general strike spread through Petrograd, and, within a week, Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.

In the early days this was a holiday honoring working women, primarily Socialist in nature, but with the resurgence of feminism in the 1960s it became a day to honor all women.

Not all Russian women are happy with the holiday, however. I found an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor about the reality of women's lives in Russia. Apparently some people think International Women's Day is kind of a sham.

But for women today, that just doesn't cut it. They say they've borne the brunt of harsh post-Soviet social adjustments and are running out of patience. And a women's movement is gradually evolving - some 50 groups have been formed in the past decade to deal with women's issues.

"Even on Women's Day, I do the cooking and cleaning, and I'm getting fed up with it," says Svetlana Kovalyova, a 30-something book editor. "Somehow the real needs of women have been forgotten in this country."

Interesting. So a 90-year-old holiday once a year hasn't really had an impact on the double-standard that exists in Russia. It doesn't surprise me, but at the same time I think a holiday celebrating the special sacrifices women make is a good one. Maybe if this celebration was extended all year long...