IWD 2024: Navigating apathy and guilt

I’ve been thinking a lot about International Women’s Day over the last week, mostly because I’m not participating in any events or actions or anything at all this year. I always know it is coming up (as I tell people who seem surprised it’s arrived, "it’s the same date every year") so I can only surmise that my apathy is intentional. By now, we know the critiques of IWD that emerge in Australia – that it is commercialised, corporatized, neoliberal, and focused on White women, middle class women, women with the most privilege – so my apathy isn't so hard to understand. 

What has been surprising is that along with my apathy has come guilt. 

I know that it’s not my personal responsibility to do something every year. Nor is there a need for my thoughts or ideas to be part of every IWD conversation or action. But I still feel guilty that I'm not participating in a formal way. 

Recognising that this year I'm not organising or supporting events or actions, I’ve made time to think about what the value of IWD is if you’re not doing anything meaningful to contribute to it. As I think, I’ve been watching and listening to the discussions and debates online and around me. Many of them are common IWD fare – objections to the theme; irritation at the misleading, non-official website; pointing out that the events are all largely organised by women. Other people, many people, are highlighting the recent release of gender-based pay gap reporting in Australia (spoiler: it’s still really bad). There are also strong intersectional threads, reminding us of the many inequities among women, and that there is no universal experience of being a woman. This last point seems to intersect with the critiques of the UN theme for 2024, ‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’. We can criticise the idea of "progress" all we like (and we absolutely, definitely, most certainly should) but economic, educational, and quality of life progress would be welcome for many women in many places.

And so I land on the conclusion that this kind of thinking and reflecting can be enough. That making time over the last week to think and read and listen and reflect and critique, even if just in my own head, is enough. That taking stock and shutting up and being willing to let my understandings and beliefs shift and expand with new knowledge and ideas that emerge from the work of many people who engage in all kinds of conversations is not the only thing we should do, but it is something I’m proud to have contributed this year.

International Women’s Day remains a really valuable day to connect with. Not only for celebration or making accusations but for taking time to reflect on the state of things and to think deeply and regularly across the years on a set of issues and experiences, and to imagine what possible actions could be taken to make things better for everyone by making things better for women. 

In my case, as ever, the thinking is strongly informed by feminism, which is a “broad church” but one that I continue to be inspired and challenged by. Feminism isn’t static or staid. It morphs and changes to accommodate critique and diversity. Or it should anyway. Feminism has offered me frameworks to think with, a range of methods to learn about the world with, sets of ethics to shape my decisions and actions, access to critiques that show me where my own practices could be more inclusive, and a politics of action and activation that means you can never stay still for long. 

And so we locate the source of the guilt in my apathy; the political imperative of feminism that has long reminded me of the need to contribute, to act, to be involved.

There is no need to for me to participate in my employer’s feel good IWD events today and there is no need at all for me to post anything to social media. But I couldn’t answer to my own politics and beliefs if I didn’t think about what and why that apathy had infiltrated my willingness to participate. A willingness to act, to think, and to be part of the kinds of changes we all hope to see requires more than yelling and pressing share, and it absolutely requires more than standing on one piece of ground and never moving. 

Sometimes, as I’ve learned this year, a willingness to act can be found in taking time to shake off the cynicism and remember what the point was from the start...

Collective and sustained action. With all the forms of contribution and conversation that are possible and necessary.