On International Women’s Day, as we reckon with the mountains, ridges, gates and fences women have clambered over for centuries in our fight for equal rights, it’s important to remind ourselves that the suffragettes called for “Bread, and Roses too”.
The origin of this slogan is important. In 1910, a campaigner for women called Helen Todd went on an automobile tour around southern Illinois, in an attempt to convince rural dwellers that women should be given the vote. As recounted by Rebecca Solnit in her splendid book Orwell’s Roses, Todd stayed on a farm where a young “hired girl”, Maggie, went to a women’s rights rally one night. The next morning Maggie reported: “What I liked best of all in the whole meetin’ … was the women votin’ so’s everybody would have bread and flowers too.”
Illustration: Simon LetchCredit:
Todd wrote a report for The American Magazine in which she argued that women’s votes would lead to a time “when life’s Bread, which is home, shelter and security, and the Roses of life, music, education, nature and books, shall be the heritage of every child that is born in the country, in the government of which she has a voice … there shall be ‘Bread for all, and Roses too’.”
In 1911, poet James Oppenheim picked up this theme, writing: “Yes, it is Bread we fight for – but we fight for Roses, too”. The phrase gathered momentum, and trickled into more and more speeches and campaigns, in the women’s and labour movements, which frequently overlapped. In 1912, Polish-born American labour union leader Rose Schneiderman argued: “What the woman who labours wants is the right to live, not simply exist – the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art.”
Today, the inequality gap is growing, worsened by the cost-of-living crisis, inflation, the alarming rental housing shortage, the wildly inflated housing market, the chasm between educational resources at public and private schools, the ongoing consequences of discrimination and of intergenerational trauma. Bread is lacking and unevenly distributed. This work continues.
But we need to stop sometimes, too, and talk about the roses. About sun and music and leisure and art, the sources of our sanity.
Women are still underpaid, underrepresented and overworked. In this country, even if they are the primary earner, women spend nine hours more each week on work unpaid work and care.
So today, my advice on International Women’s Day is to lean out, or lie down. As the widely shared tweet by media company founder Daisy Alioto reads: “The girl boss is dead, long live the girl moss (lying on the floor of the forest and being absorbed back into nature).”
We must give ourselves time for rest. Not as a distraction from the wars and horrors of the world, but a way of ensuring we have the strength to counter them, to fight for peace, and for equality. Have a break, toss aside arm-length to-do lists for a moment, flip the bird to multitasking. Sit and stare at the ocean. March down to your local park, lie down on the grass, close your eyes and listen to the birds for an hour or three. Watch ants carry crumbs across dust.
For Women’s Day, forget the girl boss and embrace the girl moss
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08.03.2024
On International Women’s Day, as we reckon with the mountains, ridges, gates and fences women have clambered over for centuries in our fight for equal rights, it’s important to remind ourselves that the suffragettes called for “Bread, and Roses too”.
The origin of this slogan is important. In 1910, a campaigner for women called Helen Todd went on an automobile tour around southern Illinois, in an attempt to convince rural dwellers that women should be given the vote. As recounted by Rebecca Solnit in her splendid book Orwell’s Roses, Todd stayed on a farm where a young “hired girl”, Maggie, went to a women’s rights rally one night. The next morning Maggie reported: “What I liked best of all in the whole meetin’ … was the women votin’ so’s everybody would have bread and........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
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