Solidarity Now

Solidarity Then

Confidence, solidarity, and skill in engaging allies: I’ve watched these?grow steadily in the 35 years I’ve been working with women around the world. Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, I want to focus on solidarity.

Solidarity, as I’ve?noted?before, is an old-fashioned term, often associated with labor strikes and student protests, that needs to be retrofitted for a new era. It’s important to remember that demonstrations of solidarity among women had their origins in the modern era precisely in strikes and protests organized by women workers (especially in the textile?trades), along with women demanding the right to vote.

Solidarity means a willingness to have one another’s backs, recognizing that we get ahead by bringing others along. Despite endless narratives about women being exceptionally competitive with one another (do we imagine that men aren’t competitive with other men?), the history of International Women’s Day shows the extent to which solidarity has always characterized women’s advancement.?

On March 8, 1975, female solidarity was showcased in a series of women’s marches all over the globe. I was there that day in New York City. I remember how electrifying it felt to watch women parade through the streets with arms linked, the first mass demonstration of common female purpose I had witnessed in person, though such gatherings had long taken place on various days in February or March outside the United States. Two years later, the UN General Assembly proclaimed March 8 as International Women’s Day around the world.?Then in 2011, President Obama designated March as Women’s History Month.

While this may sound like the inspiring kickoff of an uplifting story, the path has been painful as well. In a grim foreshadowing of the past year, women and men planning a March 8 rally in Tehran in 2007 were rounded up, interrogated and held in solitary confinement. In 2011, during the Arab Spring, crowds of Egyptian men came out in force to harass women in “observance” of the day. In many western countries, clear early goals such as equal pay for equal work and reproductive rights have either stalled or are being selectively rolled back. Violence against women continues to be a global problem, as does sexual harassment, the impetus for the extraordinary impact of?#MeToo.

Yet looked at through the lens of solidarity, the story has been profoundly positive. We now take it for granted that women will support other women. Women’s protests are have become a front-and-center feature of political and social movements:?Iranian and Ukrainian freedom, the right to vote in democracies where it is threatened. Women have also enthusiastically embraced women’s networks and employee resource groups in corporations and associations, viewing them as a powerful tool for their own development, and a way to provide resources for women coming up.

These experiences have taught most of us to place a high value on solidarity, even if making our mark was once our primary goal. My own history offers an example. On March 8 1975, I stood on the sidelines of the New York City Women’s March, intrigued and inspired, yet unable to join the exuberant throng. Why? Because I believed at the time that a writer must always remain a kind “fringe player”: an observer rather than a participant in any larger cause. Maintaining this outsider status felt essential to my rather fragile identity in those days. No longer. Solidarity is just too important.

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