As of 2019, the city state of Berlin has made the decision to add an extra public holiday to the calendar – International Women’s Day.
Becoming the 11th “Feiertag” for Berliners, the decision has been met with mixed responses. One of the key reasons for the decision is that Berlin has significantly less public holidays than most other states in Germany, with Bavaria, for example, having 13. If you compare this to the nine we have in NSW it feels a bit unfair, but anyway, Berlin wanted more and so they settled on International Women’s Day, which is a fantastic way of recognising the discrimination and systematic oppression that women have suffered from for centuries. It also opens up the floor for for celebration, recognition and commitment to progress.
When something like this is announced, you expect trolls. Trolls who will of course gladly take their extra day off, but trolls nonetheless. Responses attacking feminists: expected. People claiming that women have it easy in the western world: not a surprise. Comments on how men should have a day too: presumed to pop up. Male colleagues who call themselves feminists saying the day is stupid: perhaps not so awaited.
Umm…
Another state in Germany, Thüringen, decided a 12th public holiday was necessary (look, I’m not arguing with the Germans on this – the more the merrier) and settled on Children’s Day, which people seem to be ok with because it doesn’t “discriminate” on gender.
I’m not surprised by the systemic hate that has poured out but I am shocked by just how many people seem to lack any understanding of why Women’s Day is a thoughtful and fitting choice. Berlin is, for example, the city where an estimated 100,000 women were raped during Soviet Occupation and in a country where last year 127,457 people (85% women) were targets of murder, bodily harm, sexual assault, rape, threats and stalking, and 321 women lost their lives from domestic violence.
Although Germany has flourished economically under Angela Merkel, the country still has the third biggest gender pay gap in Europe, despite attempts to improve it on a legal level and through governmental encouragement of businesses.
Ja
Many improvements have been made and, for example, the fantastic maternity leave laws in Germany can’t be ignored. However, when a highly educated colleague who calls himself a feminist tells me it’s a “load of bulls**t” because it’s 2019, the fact that people don’t understand the issues that exist for women today was presented to me in abundantly clear and depressing fashion. When I asked him if he will come to work on the day in protest of its apparent nonsensical nature, he fumbled over his words and decided, of course, that he will take the day off anyway.
More public holidays and rights for workers are a great idea and a great initiative by the states of Germany, and the choice of days like International Women’s Day and Children’s Day are a fantastic step away from our outdated calendars dominated by religious holidays.
We should all band together and celebrate the great strides that have been made while recognising the steps that still remain to be taken, not hating and tearing down a day designed to do specifically that.