International Women’s Day

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Gainesville Women’s Liberation Leaflet for International Women’s Day, March 8, 1970 (retyped from original) Courtesy of the Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action.

March 8 th is INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY. This long ignored holiday began in 1908. Tired and overworked New York women from the factories and mothers from the kitchens in crowded tenement houses came out for mass gatherings to demand improved working and living conditions and their right to vote. Since 1908 this holiday has been observed all over the world. And, since that time, the position of women has changed some but improved very little.

(Image courtesy of the Redstockings Women’s Liberation Archives for Action.)

Women’s Liberation Demands:

• An end to the oppression of women of color. • The end to the oppression of lesbians, spinsters, unwed mothers, and divorcees. • Twenty-four hour company and state supported child care. • Life-long health care supported by corporate taxes. • The reduction of housework through the use of science. If they can send a man to the moon they can lighten our burden at home. Remaining house work should be shared equally by men and women. • Control of our own bodies: true knowledge about our bodies. Training for women in self-defense, free and safe abortions on demand; and an end to forced sterilization—the genocide of black and brown people; and safe birth control for men as well as for women. • An end to job slavery: Equal and full employment; thirty hour work week; and worker control of profits.