International Women’s Day marks a new wave of feminism

According to USC’s Admission office, the majority of the past admitted freshman class is, you guessed it, female. Fifty-three percent of new admits identify as a woman. Also, USC’s first valedictorian was a woman.

And at other top universities, it’s no different. Yale’s class of 2020 welcomes a 51% female class, and Harvard released an article in 2006 explaining the education revival and the “reversal of gender gaps” in American universities.  Forbes even agrees that since the 1970s – the rise of second and third wave feminism – that more women are attending and graduating college.

However, with flashy headlines like “Women’s college enrollment gains leave men behind,” and “Unequal Gender Ratios at Colleges Are Driving Hookup Culture,” it may still feel like its a man’s world, and we are just living in it.

Despite being extremely educated and qualified – sometimes even more so than our male counter parts – women still face major discrimination in the workforce, and tend to not get the same payment or jobs as men.

I woke up this morning with Facebook greeting me with an image of small, faceless, cartooned women lifting up the Venus emblem—a universal symbol of the female gender and of feminism. “March 8^th, 2016,” it read, “It’s International Women’s Day!”

Within minutes my timeline was riddled with politically fueled posts emphasized with “#internationalwomensday,” “#IWD,” and of course “#feminism.”

Yes, the faceless women who carry womanhood for us all.

After that, the Snapchats came pouring in with the “We Run The World” geofilter, with more faceless women strutting down my iPhone screen surrounded by glitter and holding their fists up in the air.

In recent trends the intersection of femininity and feminism has been the new norm, rather than the body hair embracing femi-nazis of a suburban white boy’s nightmare. The modern feminist is strong, proud, and beautiful.

We see women like Beyoncé, Rowan Blanchard, Amandla Steinberg, and Malala Yousafzai as representations of modern feminism, and reflect upon Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf at our gender’s past.

But what connects all of these women together besides their gender?

I’m no expert in “Herstory,” but I do know the progression of feminist theory. First wave: suffrage. Second wave: female body autonomy. Third wave: challenging femininity and gender. However, we seem to be entering a NEW wave of feminism, defined by the label made famous by celebrities like Beyonce.

To many people, this “new” holiday may be seen as a response to these growing feminist trends. What exactly does this day celebrate and why has its popularity has exploded in today’s observation? So, I decided to research this more.

International Women’s Day originates from the early days of the socialism, with the first noted observance being in 1909 by the Socialist Party of America in New York City in protest of labor laws.

Photo credit: Ben Chua

More and more socialist parties then adopted this observance across the globe, and began the phenomena of celebrating love and respect towards women in society as workers, mothers, and revolutionaries.

In 1917, International Women’s Day demonstrations in St. Petersburg actually sparked the February Revolution in Russia, which eventually lead to the fall of Tsars and the rise of the Bolsheviks. And today is no different – but instead of destroying monarchies, we are working on destroying the patriarchy through education (Note: I mean the patriarchal system that places a man over a woman, not men in general.)

In light of today, celebrate yourselves. Celebrate your academic and personal accomplishments that would not have been possible without the revolutionaries of the past.

You do you.