3月8日。讓我們慶祝女性
To all women
Fragile, opulent woman, matrix of heaven
you are a speck of guilt
even in the eyes of God
despite your holy wars
for emancipation.
They split your beauty
and remains a skeleton of love
but who still cries out for revenge
and only you can
still crying,
then you turn around and see your children again,
then you turn around and you still can't say
and be silent in amazement
and then you become as big as the earth
and raise your love song.
(A. Merini)
A long time ago, when the writer was still a university student who faced her working life with fear, she understood the unique opportunity to interview Alda Merini, an unforgettable Milanese poet who lived a troubled life with passions, pains and successes who, a few years later, he left us.
Alda Merini, for many young and old women in Italy, represents emancipation, independence and the desire to break the mold that society at that time imposed on the role of women: housewife and mother.
With the approach of March 8th we cannot help but think of women like her and the way in which some female figures of the past have imposed themselves in history as symbols of the strength of women and of what, maybe, we should be also today: supportive, united and involved.
But how was this anniversary born and why is it celebrated all over the world?
At the beginning of the last century it was the American Socialist Party that on February 28, 1909 organized a large demonstration in favor of the right of women to vote. Subsequently, in addition to universal suffrage, countless demands for women's rights were joined, including raising wages and improving working conditions. The most relevant episode, however, was the fire of the Triangle factory in New York where 146 workers, mostly women, lost their lives. To talk about March 8th, however, we will have to wait until 1918, when the women of St. Petersburg took to the streets demanding an end to the war. In Italy we started to celebrate this anniversary in 1946 by choosing mimosa as a representative flower for this day and for spring time.
And today? How we celebrate March 8th? How is this modern woman? And among them, how do women behave?
Although it is a day to remember the social and political achievements and strengthen the fight against discrimination and violence, it is also a time to reflect on the steps still to be taken. We women know how to be both the best friends and the worst enemies of ourselves and other women and, despite the battles of our forerunners, there is still a long way to go. We should be more supportive rather than divide; we should behave as team player instead of trying to prevail over each other and offer the shoulder instead of, alas, judging.
On the other hand, however, we are able to help and support ourselves in difficult moments, to be mothers, sisters and friends in the most complete and unique way. In short, as the well-known song by Fiorella Mannoia said [editor’s note: Fiorella Mannoia is a well-known Italian singer-songwriter] we are "gently complicated, more and more excited, delicate" but, on the other hand, women must "remember who they are and what they are capable of. They should not be afraid of crossing the endless fields of irrationality, nor of remaining suspended on the stars, at night, leaning against the balcony of the sky. They must not be afraid of the darkness that engulfs things, because that darkness frees a multitude of treasures. That darkness that they, free, disheveled and proud, know as no man will ever know. (V. Woolf).
And this is how we let you reflect on this day and its thousand meanings, hoping that you will be able to be united not only today but day after day because March 8th is not just an anniversary in which we dress in yellow and breathe deeply the scent of mimosas, but a moment to raise awareness, analyze and improve.
Tablo team, mostly made up by women, wish you a good International Women’s Day waiting for you in our Showroom for a coffee, a chat and a bunch of mimosas <3
#staytuned