Rupert Myers

International Women’s Day is a bit silly

The British do not do seven day mourning the way many Venezuelans are for Hugo Chavez, neither – as a rule – do we flock to the roads to see the bodies of our politicians being driven through the streets. With the exception of Jeremy Bentham we do not – mercifully – put our departed on display.  We tend to leave that to communists.

Just as Chavez’s death reminds us that we like to keep our grief low-key, it is fair to say that we are incredibly bad at most public events, with people grumbling, criticising, and proudly declaring that they are going away on holiday just to avoid the thing. We are useless at celebrating St George’s day, and have never fully converted to Halloween. There is too much whingeing about Valentine’s, and really only April Fool’s day gets widespread support because that is a day purposefully designed just for insincerity, of which we cannot get enough.

Much as we don’t like to parade our emotions publicly, so we reject the forced campaigning of a special day. The British rail against any feeling of social pressure to conform to the requirements of a big emotion or idea. Whilst each of us has their weaknesses when it comes to celebrating things, we are uncommonly bad at passing any opportunity to take a swipe at anything with which we disagree.

Today is International Women’s Day, the sort of slightly-naff, forced concept which makes our sensibility for the low-key approach to life shudder. It is inherently weird that we should only celebrate women on one out of the 365 days of the year, and the event is suspiciously well organised.

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