During high school in 1980’s I studied Russian for three years (my goal was to read Russian authors in original language – never happened. With French I got a bit further, 5 years of studies and half way through Le Mur). Unfortunately I can’t really speak or understand Russian too well, but some phrases I do remember.  The “mezhdunarovski zhenski den” (or something like that), literally translated as “international women’s day”, is one of those. At that time the Soviet Union was still strong, and the celebration for the hard working soviet woman was an important thing. That was my first contact with International Women’s Day.  

I wanted to check the correct transliteration from wikipedia, and to my surprise they now call it ” Восьмое марта, Vos'moe Marta”. I wish my Russian was good enough to know what that means. If someone knows why the name of this day in Russian has changed, please let me know. Also feel free to correct my spelling on mezhdunarovski zhenski den. 

When growing up the women’s day was not recognized in Finland. It could be that Finns didn’t want to adopt anything that could be linked to the Soviet Union, or socialistic behavior in any way. We were – and to some extent still are – very big on ensuring that we are associated as a western country and never mistaken as being, or having been, part of the soviet block. I am a product of this thinking, of course. Back in 1984 in Haddonfield, New Jersey, my American home room teacher Mr. Morabito insisted on speaking Russian to me, accused me of lying when I said I didn’t understand a word he was saying (this was before my Russian classes). He also claimed to know for a fact that soviet tanks are patroling in Helsinki. I was furious, and 25 years later it still ticks me enough to mention it here.  

To my astonishment, it took me this long to learn that the origin of International Women’s Day is actually in New York. As the industrial revolution progressed, also women were needed in the factories. They were considered as good, cheap labor. Women started to rebel against the lesser pay and poor working conditions, and in 1908 15,000 women marched for shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. The next year, the national women’s day was established in America, followed by the international women’s day in 1910. 

The day seems to have experienced some sort of renessaince in recent years. My first congratulation text message came already early in the morning from a male colleague. Most women’s day, mother’s day, and even valentine’s day sms’s however usually have come from other women. It’s as if these are the days when women remember that, hey, we are all linked together in some fragile way.  

Early 1990’s was an awakening for me in this respect. I already mentioned trying to read Sartre in French. The reason why I was reading Sartre was, that even after reading a few thousand pages of Simone de Beauvoir’s journals, I still couldn’t understand why this intelligent woman would let someone else control her life and drive her to misory. It still doesn’t make any sense, but a lot of other things don’t make sense either.  

At that time the United Nations had a catchy phrase that went something like this:”Women do 75% of the world’s work, earn 10% of the world’s wages, and own 1% of the world’s wealth”. For a young woman in her early 20’s hearing something like this was like pouring gasoline into flames. There had to be a reason for such injustice. I got interested in poverty, world economy, and started to study economics.  

I thought – and still think – that money is the most efficient tool for making the world a better place. Those  bright-eyed idealists who say that money is categorically bad are just tiring themselves in a a useless fight. Lack of money is not a source of well-being. Poverty sows ignorance, ignorance sows injustice. The good thing with ignorance is that it can be cured with knowledge. Let’s all fight for knowledge and education. For education we need – money.