International Woman’s Day? Not For Me. Thanks!!

by Louisa Pawsey

Just how patronising can one get? I mean, it sounds like something that has come out of the mouth of an Edwardian/Victorian government.

I know, lets make the little women at home think they are more important by giving them a day in the year that they can 'actually' leave the house!!!! Its still like having the outdated ladies day at Ascot! So I guess you have worked out that I am not a supporter of International Woman’s Day.

I don’t even know where to begin with what’s wrong with the whole scenario. Apart from it actually separating 'one' woman out from the rest of the population, it makes them feel like second class citizens, and look as though they are only important for one day of the year. Or look like the dumb arsed woman who falls for the propaganda of it all, or just the blind ignorance of it? It riles me completely, but just not for the reasons you might think.

I am not a feminist. I don’t believe in the claim of female equality with their male counterpart. There are just some things that a woman can not do as well as a man, and vice versa. And, I don’t think we should push the fact because we are all born different, and all have different strengths and weaknesses. That is what makes us all great and distinct from one another. All of us are also good at different things.

But having a special day to highlight the 'achievements' of women, for me, actually has the opposite effect and diminishes those achievements. It is like saying 'oh look at what she has done, she is a woman, isn’t that amazing'? It sounds as though women aren’t any more capable of bearing children and running a home. For me, that is a disgraceful attitude to have and to portray.

Being a woman is not anything to be celebrated. It is not an achievement, it just happens to be the reason why my chromosomes were formed during my mothers pregnancy. It might be what I am, but it is not who I am and so I do not want to be celebrated for it, especially not on one measly day of the year. If I am good at my job, and I have achieved something, then it should be celebrated on it's own merit and worth, instead just because I am a woman.

Believe me as a woman, who is also a military historian, I hear it an awful lot. When I am having a discussion or giving a presentation, I always get the same sentence, 'you know a lot about this stuff for a girl'. Why is it a surprise that as a female, I am into military history?

I certainly wouldn’t want my achievements in that field to be celebrated on international woman’s day. I would find it extremely insulting and patronising, and I am sure a lot of the other women high achievers you have been celebrating this week would feel the same too.

Most of them fought to achieve what they have, in a time when most fields and industries were dominated by men. But with one swoop of a pen, politicians have set that back 100s of years and yet feminists all over the world are celebrating International Woman’s Day like its some kind of turning stone. Its really not!

I have seen so many pictures, on social networks over the last week talking about all these woman who we should be celebrating because they have all done something amazing in their lives or in their fields of expertise. Well I am sorry, but if they are that amazing, then shouldn’t I know who they are easily without needing a lecture? They might be famous in their fields and they probably get a lot of respect from their peers, but that doesn’t mean they are actually famous, and have done something that everybody cares about.

And just as well, there are a lot of great men in this world who have achieved a great deal in their respective fields, that are not even well known. Are we going to have an international mens day to celebrate their achievements? No of course not. So why do we need a woman’s day? Well in truth we don’t, its just some stupid made-up day, created to silence those women who do not think they have any degree of equality with their opposite counterpart.

I do have one thing to say to you about that, you don’t! Women will never have equality with men - for various different reasons - both physical and mental, and not even a large number of International Women's Days is going to change that fact. And the sooner certain people accept that, the happier they will be, because they are forgetting one important thing. Even if women were capable of doing everything a man can, wanted to do everything a man did, and earned the same amount of money as men did, they will still never be equal.

Do you know why? Because of the one simple fact that men can never have children. There is one thing in this world that a woman can do that no man ever will. And so, we will never be equal. And quite frankly, I am pleased about that.

Why would anyone want to be the same as everybody else? I mean, after all, that is what equality means.

The idea of everybody being equal and the same, to me, sounds rather boring and not very exciting. Who even wants to live in a world that is flat?

* Follow me on Twitter: @ukhistorygirl and @woolwichonline.