"What women still need to learn is that no one gives you power. You just have to take it yourself," Roseanne Barr.
As you know, at Maminat, we are not very keen on celebrating days that are mere commercial products, which we consider to lack much basis and not to align with our philosophy or our way of thinking and acting. However, International Women's Day, celebrated on March 8th, seems to us an important date. It is a day to demand real equality between men and women. It is not a day to celebrate anything because, although we have improved a lot, there is still much to do to achieve a balance between the two sexes. But it is a day to remember women, to see the progress we have made, to observe and reflect on the difficulties women face in many countries, and to propose improvements. However, should we only do this once a year? Should news reports only remind us of the wage gap on March 8th?
It seemed to us that no, this was hypocritical. Therefore, we are going to dedicate these weeks to our own Working Woman campaign. We want to bring you things and curiosities that you probably didn't know about women, or if you did, you can be reminded of them.
Our goal is not, in any case, to rise up and exclaim "Long live women! Men have done nothing." Our objective is to show that both men and women should be treated equally, even if there are some differences between us. Due to historical reasons, we women have been the forgotten or the oppressed, and we are slowly but surely taking our rightful place.
After all, Maminat's story is a feminine one, the story of a girl who, after suffering a skin problem, turned to the world of plants and took her place, her power, despite hearing hundreds of times that she was crazy for wanting to start a business and create a brand of natural and organic cosmetics with all the existing competition, with a whole stable and established world already in place. Ultimately, each and every one of us is a goddess and we have a strength and power that we must learn to see. But don't you find it difficult?
Why International Women's Day is celebrated
Because the UN General Assembly declared March 8th as International Day for Women's Rights and International Peace in 1975. This day was chosen because on March 8, 1857, a group of New York women working in a textile factory decided to demonstrate for improved working conditions and rights. To put it briefly... If we think of the 19th century, one word that often resonates with us is industrialization. At that time, women were increasingly joining production factories, many of them in textiles. These factories had many more women than men, but women worked long hours, more than 12 hours, and it was very common for them to earn very low wages. Thus, the female workers of that New York factory, tired of labor exploitation, mobilized and took to the streets to demand their rights.
Perhaps it was the first time women took the reins and decided to be the protagonists of a mobilization, or at least, the first historically documented mobilization. After this date, there have been other very important and sad dates for female history, for the history of humanity.
Working women took center stage in the 20th century
Female textile workers rebelled against capitalist exploitation 
half a century later, in March 1908. The same situation led them to march through the city streets with a cry: "Bread and Roses!" However, at that time, 15,000 women decided to demonstrate. After reading a bit about those years, there's a terrifying event that makes one's hair stand on end just thinking about it: the fire at a shirt factory in New York.
The flames claimed the lives of 123 female textile workers and 23 men. Most of the victims were young immigrants (cheaper labor, as you can imagine...). I've read different versions of what happened, and some loose ends remain, but both accounts agree that the women couldn't speak to the owner, didn't even have permission to eat, worked extremely long hours for little pay, and that the factory doors were sometimes locked to prevent anyone from stealing anything. How insane!
During that fire, unable to escape the factory, many of those women died in the flames, and others jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. That event forced changes in legislation, occupational health, and factory safety standards.
Working women in the 21st century
And depending on where we are, today, women's demands are very different. In more developed countries, we talk about a wage gap between men and women, but have you stopped to think about those countries where women do not easily access education, where they cannot apply for a bank loan unless their husbands have authorized it?
There are many cruel stories, and we must see them, bring them to light, and consider them part of our history without abandoning what we have achieved, the path we have advanced, and the obstacles we have overcome.
Thanks to the brave, the fighters, those who believed it was possible and demonstrated it. You are an inspiration to me, you are an inspiration to hundreds and thousands of women.
So, as I said... we won't celebrate Valentine's Day or Black Friday, but we will run our own Working Woman campaign. Will you join us in reading?