On March 8, 1908, 15,000 women in the garment/textile industry marched through the streets of New York, calling for the right to vote, shorter hours, better pay and an end to child labour. One hundred years later, on March 8, International Women’s Day marchers around the world will take to the streets to remind us there’s still work to be done.

If the notion of a Women’s Day march causes you to scoff, “When’s Men’s Day?” I’ll skip the obvious comeback (um, every day?) and instead direct you to Toronto’s march theme this year, derived from the labour song “Bread and Roses”: “the rising of the women is the rising of us all.” From pay inequity to the prevalence of violence, the issues that hurt women ultimately hurt everyone.

So, in honour of International Women’s Day, here’s a look at three women’s organizations rising up in the city this week.

GUERRILLA GIRLS
If you’re looking for feminist superheroes, look no further than the Guerrilla Girls. These gorilla-masked feminist avengers — anonymous activists who work under the assumed names of dead female artists — tackle sexism and racism in the art world and beyond, through poster campaigns, billboards, books and presentations.

Launched in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls’ first campaign was born out of frustration with the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture,” which, though supposedly a roundup of the world’s best contemporary art, turned out to be 92 per cent male and 100 per cent white.

More than 20 years later, founding members Frida Kahlo and Kathe Kollwitz are still hard at work, lecturing at campuses and museums, writing a book about women in Hollywood and, of course, stirring shit up in the art world. 

“In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined my life taking the direction it’s taken,” admits Kahlo. “But it kept getting more and more interesting.”

Defying the stereotypes of humourless feminists, Guerrilla Girls campaigns are smart-mouthed, funny and accessible. (A famous poster campaign asked, “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?” then compared the percentage of female nudes to the percentage of female artists.) Kahlo draws inspiration from 1960s activists like Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies, who used humour and street theatre as ways to effect change.

“When you mock the force that you think oppresses you, you have some power over that force,” says Kahlo. “But what we soon discovered is you can also use humour as a hook. If you can get someone who disagrees with you to laugh at a situation, you’ve bored a hole in their brain.”

Recently, the Guerrilla Girls have found themselves in the odd position of being invited to work with some of the institutions they’ve been criticizing, like sitting on the first panel on feminism and art at the Museum of Modern Art in 2007. “Much to MOMA’s surprise, it was the best-attended conference in the history of MOMA,” says Kahlo. “So I’m sure they were eating a little bit of crow there.”

Kahlo and Kollwitz will be speaking March 6, 7pm, at a sold-out lecture presented by the Ryerson Student-Run Lecture Series (Metro Convention Centre, 255 Front W. Rush tickets may be available.)

WOMEN’S COURT
Oscar Wilde once said that “the only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” The Women’s Court of Canada (WCC) couldn’t agree more. Operating as a virtual court, the WCC is a group of lawyers, academics and human-rights activists who’ve come together to reconsider and rewrite Supreme Court decisions relating to equality issues.

As WCC member Diana Majury writes in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, “Women’s equality is painfully far from being a reality — too many women live in poverty … lesbians are merely tolerated … women with disabilities are still denied basic access to transportation, employment, and autonomy; racialized women are stigmatized and marginalized … Aboriginal women are disappearing — raped, murdered, and discarded… But politicians and Supreme Court of Canada judges seem to think that women have largely attained equality and that other issues (balanced budgets and national security) should take priority over equality.”

WCC members see themselves as following in a proud tradition of Canadian women challenging Supreme Court decisions, going back as far as the Persons case (1927-1929), when Canadian women appealed to the Privy council in England to be declared legal “persons” eligible to sit in the senate.

Although the decisions of the WCC are not legally binding, they do provide a glimpse of what the law could look like if substantive equality played a larger role.

Denise Réaume, a member of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law, wrote one of the first six WCC judgments. The Supreme Court ruling she tackled, in “Law v. Canada,” said that it was acceptable to deny a survivor’s pension to people under 35. 

“In looking only at the age distinction,” says Réaume, “the Supreme Court missed the gender issue. Most surviving spouses in all age groups are women, so the age restriction affects mainly women.”
She continues, “To assume that one’s spouse’s death causes no serious financial hardship if one is under 35 assumes that one is employed and fully self-sufficient. Unfortunately, this is still more accurate for men than women.”

Réaume argues that by ignoring the social conditions in which young women live, the original ruling is discriminatory in terms of both age and sex.

Her ruling and five other judgments from the WCC were published in Vol. 18:1 of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law (CJWL), and on March 6-7, the group’s achievements are being celebrated with a symposium for lawyers and law students called Rewriting Equality, happening in Toronto. Though the event is not open to the public, you can order a copy of the CJWL at www.
utpjournals.com.

WOMEN WORKING WITH IMMIGRANT WOMEN
For the past 15 years, Women Working With Immigrant Women (WWWIW) has been a driving force behind Toronto’s International Women’s Day march. Judy Vashti Persad, who volunteers with WWWIW and works at the Toronto and York Region Labour Council, explains the appeal of the march: “It’s a day to feel a part of a community, a part of a movement — to say we’re here and we cannot be forgotten.” She says the march serves as a reminder to politicians and the public that “we’re going to continue to fight the anti-women policies and anti-working people, anti-poor people policies coming out.”

One of the first organizations in Toronto to look at issues that affect immigrant women and women of colour from an anti-racist perspective, WWWIW has been around for about 30 years. Their last big project was an investigative report that sent women to apply for jobs in the manufacturing, sales and service sectors while wearing the hijab. The report, titled “No Hijab Is Permitted Here” (a direct quote from one potential employer), documented discrimination faced by the applicants. It was released in 2002.

Since then, cuts in city funding have meant that WWWIW cannot afford to employ any staff or take on major projects. “It’s a shame because it was a vibrant organization,” says Persad. Then she corrects herself: “Well, it still is, with a dedicated board, but we just need to have a staff person.” Until that’s possible, WWWIW is relying on volunteer power to get work done, often pairing up with groups within the labour, anti-poverty and women’s movements.

Toronto’s International Women’s Day festivities begin March 8 with an 11am rally at the OISE Auditorium (252 Bloor W.), followed by a 1pm march from OISE along Bloor, down Yonge to Gould. An IWD fair and workshops will also take place from 2-4pm at the Ryerson University Student Centre (55 Gould). 

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