The idea of the International Women's Day (March 8) was first proposed in the mid-nineteenth century, during the process of industrialization and economic expansion. The protests focused on women's poor working conditions and low salaries.

One such protest was held on March 8, 1857 in New York, by women who worked in garment and textile factories. They were locked inside a factory by their bosses and the police, who set the building on fire, and 130 working women died carbonized.

Other protests followed, as the one that took place in 1908, when in the city of New York 15,000 women marched demanding reduction in working hours, better pay and voting rights.

On February 28, 1909, in the United States, after a statement by the Socialist Party of America, the first International Women's Day was established.

In 1910, in Denmark, the first International Women's Conference took place and it was conducted by the International Socialist. On this occasion, it was decided to commemorate on March the 8th the International Women's Day.

How was the International Women's Day established?

In Russia, after the October Revolution, the Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai asked Lenin to establish the International Women's Day as an official date, a public holiday, in honor of the "heroic working women." But as time went by, the holiday lost its political feature and became a day when men expressed their sympathy for the women in their lives. The day remains an official holiday in Russia, Belarus, Macedonia, Moldova and Ukraine.

In the West, International Women's Day was celebrated in the 1910s, and 1920s. The celebrations were almost forgotten, and were revitalized by feminism in the 1960s.

The year of 1975 was to be the Women's International Year, but the United Nations Organization intervened and definitively established the International Women's Day.

The first major step towards the recognition of the importance of women was given by Jesus. Many were the women who followed and contributed, alongside His disciples, to the growth of Christianity.

Despite the example set by Jesus, women continued to be discriminated. There was a time when some even wondered: "Does a woman have a soul?" This is, by the way, the title of an interesting article published by Kardec in the Spiritist Magazine in January 1866.

In it, Kardec explains: "One can regard her as morally emancipated, if she is not legally emancipated. One day, by force of circumstances, it will come to that point".

Women's emancipation is a sign of progress

On Chapter VI - Equal rights for men and women, On Chapter IX - Equity Act, and on The Book of Spirits, answering this matter, Question 822, the Spirits said:

 "Human law, to be fair, should establish equal rights for man and woman. Any privilege granted to one or another is contrary to justice. Women's emancipation accompanies the progress of civilization. Woman's enslavement marches together with barbarism. The genders, moreover, only exist in our bodies. Since the Spirits can come to Earth as man or woman with no distinction, there is no difference between them. Therefore, women should have the same rights" (Book of Spirits, 822-A).

In response to question 817, the Spirits are very clear: God has given to both the intelligence to know good and evil, and also the possibility of progress.

We highlight sections of the Code of the Spiritist Natural Law (Mundo Juridico Editora - Legal World Publisher), in which its author, Jose Fleuri Queiroz comments on the Verbal Conjugation Chapter of the book Astronautas do Além (Beyond Astronauts), 3rd Edition, Publisher Emmanuel Spiritist Group, Sao Bernardo do Campo, SP, 1973. The commented text is authored by Brother Saul, pseudonym used by J. Herculano Pires.

The man lifts the world/the woman holds home

Here's what Jose Fleuri Queiroz wrote: 

According to Antoinette Saldanha (Spirit), "The man lifts the world/the woman holds the home". Regarding their rights, a woman may work in positions until recently reserved to men, but in the area of functions, each one occupies its biological and well-defined and irreversible social position. A Spiritual poet whispered in our ear the following ballad, which seems to clarify the question: "Man and woman - two moments/from the verb to love on Earth/In which the souls come together, in the life that unveils". 

Exacerbated feminism is as foolish as male chauvinism. Both represent extreme positions, which reveal misunderstanding of the problem. The man who enslaves a woman diminishes himself, and the woman who wants to override the man does nothing more than demean herself. When a woman takes in social life the male role, her duty is not to compete with the man, but give him the example of a balanced performance of this function in which man acts like a ridiculous chauvinist and disrespects himself. Woman's hands, as said by Julinda Alvim in her poem, ought to sow love where man has only struck the hammer.

Man is the brain/the woman, the heart

Reverencing the feminine soul in its redeeming features, Victor Hugo made significant comparisons between man and woman: "Man is the highest of creatures; woman, the highest of ideals. God made for man a throne; for woman an altar. The throne exalts; the altar sanctifies. Man is the brain; woman, the heart. The brain produces light; the heart love. The brain produces light; the heart, love. The light is fruitful; the heart revives. Man is a genius; woman, an angel. Genius is immeasurable; the angel is indefinable. The aspiration of man is supreme glory; the aspiration of women, extreme virtue. The glory brings greatness; virtue brings divinity. The man has supremacy; the woman, preference.

Supremacy is strength; preference is the right. Man is strong by reason; woman is invincible by tear. Reason convinces, the tear moves. Man is capable of all heroism; women of all martyrs. Man is the code; woman, the gospel. The code corrects; the gospel enhances. Man is a temple; woman, a sanctuary. Before the temple, we uncover our head: before the sanctuary, we kneel. Man thinks; woman dreams. Thinking is having a brain; dreaming is to have a halo on the forehead. Man is an eagle flying; woman, a nightingale singing. Flying is to master the space; singing is to conquer the soul.

Man has a guiding light: consciousness. Woman has a star: hope. Light guides, hope saves. Finally, man is placed where the Earth ends. Woman is where Heaven begins".

It is more than proven that women's place is not only in the kitchen, or raising children. Her place is everywhere. In the various sectors, she has occupied her space, with grip and determination.

In Spiritism, women occupy the same space as men, with the same competence, and develop a work of great importance, not only through her example, but also by the revelation of the teachings of Jesus.