International Women's Day is the most important holiday for the women's rights movement around the world, with roots dating back to the early 20th century. As with all holidays with historical traditions, there are several versions of its founding myth. Today, we know that the conditions for establishing a "women's holiday" were laid simultaneously on the American continent, in Europe, and in Russia, and were always related to the unequal living and working conditions of women and their inability to vote. The celebration of International Women's Day in the Czech lands and Brno is linked to the "Second International Conference of Socialist Women" held in Copenhagen in 1910, where a hundred delegates from 17 countries met.
The reasons for the introduction of International Women's Day in 1911 in the Czech lands were given by a combination of several different circumstances, but the main factor was disappointment with the imperial electoral reform of 1907, which did not grant women the right to vote. This fact caused women as a group to lose interest in the activities of social democracy, because this party did not actively pursue women's suffrage in the Vienna parliament, considering it politically unfeasible. Unlike the end of the 19th century, when the demand for women's suffrage appeared in the political proclamations of social democracy, it ceased to feature in its policy statements after the middle of the first decade of the 20th century.
Moreover, active suffrage for men was then considered a sufficient prerequisite for the establishment of a socialist society, which would be both classless and gender-equal in itself. The conceptual solution to women's civil and electoral rights was thus temporarily postponed within social democracy. The situation began to change around 1910, when the growing global feminist movement influenced the thinking and political strategies of social democrats. Like their colleagues abroad, a new generation of Moravian socialists had a different idea of what it meant to be a committed working woman. This idea increasingly moved away from the older concept of women suffering exploitation by capital in favor of a modern model of the new proactive working woman. Although the new working woman did not yet have the right to vote, she was to become a determined revolutionary standing side by side with men. This is amply illustrated by contemporary illustrations. Women were depicted as radical, physically gifted fighters who lacked neither personal motivation nor an active approach.
The new gender strategy of social democracy was also implemented through the introduction of International Women's Day, which began to be celebrated annually in the city streets and factories as a clear political manifestation not only for the participating movement and women, but also for the general public. The first celebrations of International Women's Day found the Brno regional headquarters of the Social Democratic women's organization in a phase of rebuilding—a movement that had a tradition here since the 1870s, but which had been in decline since the mid-1900s and was regaining momentum before the introduction of International Women's Day. The International Women's Day celebrations in Brno in March 1911 and in subsequent years therefore took place in areas where the women's labor movement was strongest – in Husovice, Židenice, Královo Pole, Komárov, and others. In the city centre, Czech and German social democrats decided to present the new holiday and related topics just before the outbreak of World War I. On 8 March 1914, a rally for women's suffrage was held at the Reduta on Zelný trh, protesting against political injustice, the general increase in the price of basic foodstuffs, rising unemployment, the absence of employee and old-age insurance, and the lack of adequate care for mothers and infants. It was one of the rare occasions when female workers from suburban communities in Brno became visible in the city center.
The new women's holiday, celebrated in Moravia and throughout Austria-Hungary for the first time in 1911, served its purpose—it revived the stagnant women's labor movement and also served as proof that social democracy is a modern, progressive, and, above all, still a "protest political party." At the same time, International Women's Day proved to be an effective mobilization tool, as it helped social democracy penetrate previously untapped areas and raise its profile. However, especially in areas where the party had a weaker position, such as in rural regions, the holiday took a back seat to other, "more important" events.
Hana Krutílková, Moravské zemské muzeum
