Happy International Women’s Day!

I am delighted to introduce today’s guest blog by an old friend, Dorota Mitrus*, who made an important contribution to helping promote effective democratic participation in Poland post-1989 and is now engaged in promoting democracy and effective governance in many other countries. Her blog speaks for itself.

What I would like to stress is that while for some in Poland International Women’s Day is associated with the communist regime, the principles behind it remain incredibly important. In today’s competitive world, we need to make full use of the talents at our disposal irrespective of gender, disability or other issues.

In the UK, we have done a lot to ensure that the role of women in society, in business and in public life, whether in our own country or globally, is maximised. But we know there is a lot more work to do on this.

I am looking forward to having lunch today with a group of talented Polish women to discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Happy International Women’s Day!

This year’s International Women’s Day is exceptional for me.

Firstly, because I was invited by Ambassador Robin Barnett to become a guest on his blog. Secondly, because I will be in Azerbaijan on that day.

If not for the latter, I would have probably missed that day completely in the spate of everyday work. For me, 8 March has never been a feast when you pass on best wishes and drink coffees, but rather a day which is about something completely different.

Time has stopped in Azerbaijan – I feel as if I am back in the 1970s, witnessing the preparations to a great feast. For the last few days, the staff in the hotel where I have been facilitating training have only talked about a big event, dancing, performances and other attractions.

Receptionists keep gossiping about the dresses for that day, the master of ceremony walks around the restaurant, doing sound and equipment checks, shouting something incomprehensible through the loudspeakers. He told me this morning that he was pleased I was there, because this is the International Women’s Day after all, and I will probably be the only foreign guest.

My presence has made him speak in three languages to make his entertainment more international – he will shout in Azeri, English and Russian. He got a bit sad on learning I also speak Russian, but he has immediately decided he would speak in English especially for me, as it will be more ‘worldly’.

This day remains a very important event in the former Soviet Union countries, ‘uniting proletarian women of all countries’ to such extent that I had to change the plan of my training and finish earlier for the ladies to be able to adjourn to their rooms, change into their evening dresses, do the make-up and look great on “their day”. I did not take any dresses with me to Azerbaijan, let alone an evening one…

As a child I was always convinced that the Women’s Day was a day of absurd.

The custom ordered us to give flowers to female teachers, cooks, cleaning ladies, all the female staff at school. I could not understand why I had to give them flowers as I was a little woman myself.

Furthermore, women were treated terribly on an everyday basis, hence the frenzy of observances on that one day seemed to be a reconciliation en masse of all men for all the bad things done to women, and all those things erased themselves with a touch of the magic wand – a carnation flower each woman received.

I know many people from my generation who have a trauma about this particular flower because of the Women’s Day association with carnations and other compulsory observances from the period of Communism, when feasting was obligatory, as were expressions of general happiness and international brotherhood, despite spokes put into the wheels of the system by forces evil to it.

As a Soviet and Communist custom, the Women’s Day simply disappeared from my ‘to –do list’ at some point, along with the obligatory, forced marches on 1 May or the Victory Day observances on 9 May.

My further memories related to the International Women’s Day are of my parents talking in the kitchen – my room was adjacent to it, separated only by a thin, socrealistic wall.

I remember their discussions, deafened by the Free Europe Radio which was on all the time (drowned out as well, which created a peculiar cacophony of sounds), during which some snippets of moral dilemmas reached my room.

For example, they were about whether my mother should accept a Women’s Day gift from the headmistress of the school who on all other days tries to force mum to obey the system, or whether to refuse the gift deliberately and use this occasion to demonstrate one’s independence and lack of agreement to the absurdities of life during Communism.

After all, the gifts on those days were soap bars, tea packets or even coffee if the times were better, but also some old stockings assigned according to the “one size fits all” principle, which was not necessarily true.

As a result, Women’s Day commenced a great exchange of presents among colleagues and friends, who, depending on where they worked, would receive a different size of stockings, different kind of tea or even a chocolate-like product. This process could last a few days or even weeks.

My secondary school time fell during the Solidarity period and the Martial Law – a time when merely mentioning Women’s Day did not go down well. My parents were involved with the Teachers’ Solidarity in Lublin – in those circles, the Women’s Day was more of an occasion appeal for female teachers that were interned or for imprisoned women – Solidarity activists.

Thirty years have passed since then, of which I devoted the last 20 to working with the NGO sector, including by leading projects aimed at increasing women’s activities and participation in politics and social life in both Poland and the former Soviet republics. Much has changed, even though I would not like to put my signature under all the effects of those changes, but I do not want to talk about this today.

To me, Poland still remains a country that ‘undergoes transformation’ and it is a pity that there is still no balance between the radical, feminist circles that one can easily see and hear, and the environment of competent, wise women who I have met in my professional life in recent years and who still do not see a place for themselves in the present public life and in the style created for media and promotional needs.

A peaceful work, self-assurance, partner relations with both men and women, competences and qualifications are not media-friendly and do not sell too well. One can then have an impression that in Poland we have those women who are silent, suffer from domestic violence and are too frightened to change anything on the one hand, while on the other there are those brave feminist activists getting prepared to hold senior state positions, who organise shadow cabinets.

But there is a space in between – a space for the many shades of the activities of Polish women. I count on this space to develop better and better in the coming years, which is what I would like to particularly wish you, ladies and gentlemen, and myself on this day.

Finally, I would like to propose that this day become the International Day of Women’s Solidarity, which makes sense when we are able to offer support for those women who fight for democracy, freedom of expression and for all human rights (given a woman is a human being, too) in their respective countries.

When I write this, I see the faces of my colleagues from the World Movement for Democracy, with whom I talk a lot about what is important for them.

In Zimbabwe, they fight for the access to education for young girls, so that they can have a better future; in Egypt, after the beginning of pro-democratic changes subsequent to the revolution, there was somehow no space for women at the decision-making table at a time when the future was being planned, even though there had been so many women in the Tahrir Square; in India, they spoke up for security and respect following recent tragic murders, for which no one had been responsible in the past.

Now the Indian women have had enough and started to speak.

I will be thinking about them here in Azerbaijan, during the evening event in a post-Soviet style, sitting next to young activists from Azerbaijani political parties wearing evening dresses, listening to the master of ceremony shouting in three languages, and to the assurances that all women are beautiful and deserve to be loved.

• Follow @FCOHumanRights on Twitter #IWD #womensday
• Map showing UK government action to empower women across the globe.

*Dorota Mitrus co-founded the European Institute for Democracy and has served as its President since 1998. EID, under her leadership, has implemented several programs supporting democracy around the world, targeting former Soviet Union countries as well as others such as Iraq and Egypt in efforts to share the unique Polish experience of transformation from satellite Soviet country into a strong democracy with a free market economy and a member of both NATO and the EU.

Prior to her leadership of EID, Dorota Mitrus worked for NDI Poland (National Democratic Institute for Democracy) as Coordinator of the “Women in Politics” program and as a political party building trainer and coordinator. Earlier, she was active in Polish politics as a member of an anti-communist opposition party, responsible for foreign relations, political marketing and media relations.

Dorota is a member of Vital Voices and World Movement for Democracy networks. In her private life, she is a wife and mother of three daughters.