Ingredients for the recipe of the day
2 ounces of pinkwashing
500 grams of girlpower
500 ml of empowerment
A sprinkling of mimosas
And that's it: 8 March is ready to be baked and served.
We are joking now, but every year, Women's Day generates a whole series of movements, convergences and debates that give rise to headaches.
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Surely in our “scrolling” sessions on Instagram we have seen adverts and advertisements of initiatives related to Women's Day popping up like mushrooms these days, from the 10 euro all-inclusive evening, to the special waxing offer for 8 March. And it is quite bizarre that a holiday that should be dedicated to representing half of the global population is reduced to this.
Phenomenology of Women's Day
Because let's not forget, Women's Day did not originate, as many believe, from the commemoration of an accident in a New York factory in 1911 where some female workers lost their lives, but rather from a series of “bureaucratic” decisions by American socialist activists who wanted to establish a holiday dedicated to women's rights and their place in society. Something very political.
Until a few years ago, we witnessed an embarrassing “stripping” of this social essence, because let's not forget, women only have “superficial” interests and meeting their needs means discounting any product on 8 March and here we go, happy Women's Day. Fortunately, with a more widespread diffusion of feminist issues something is changing. We are increasingly seeing cycles of meetings, book promotions, sharing of experiences, which lead us to understand our place in the world and the weight our thoughts should have in the public sphere.
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On the other hand, when a complex issue is spread on a large scale, it inevitably ends up being “flattened” and turned into a logo, which is extremely convenient, but does it really serve progress? This is where the pinkwashing phenomenon comes in, where it is enough to put on an apparently feminist veneer, with lots of highly empowering slogans, but they are just slogans in the end. It is nice to be told that we are important, powerful and that we are worthwhile, but when we are not in reality, does it really make sense?
Can we define as feminist a campaign, which has recently appeared on posters in our capital, where the right not to have an abortion is defined as “empowering”, so that more women can be born?
Equality does not pass through a day, a slogan, a distortion of a message: it passes through concreteness, self-determination, the recognition of equality.
These are absolutely urgent challenges for the new world, also in the light of the last two years, between pandemic and uncertainties for the future, which have strongly affected women in terms of work, health, opportunities, with an exponential growth of cases of violence. As we know, crisis situations have a greater impact on those who are already in a weak position. But they must become an opportunity to build something fair, something new, because the image of a fairer world also passes through equality, not just one day a year. Best wishes to us therefore, always.
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