Thousands gathered in Toronto on Saturday to rally and march for the ongoing fight for women’s rights on International Women’s Day.
International Women’s Day Toronto, an organization that focuses on honouring the date, hosted a rally at OISE Auditorium starting at 11 a.m. on March 8. At 1 p.m., attendees took to the streets and marched all the way to Yonge-Dundas Square.
Alisha Alam, a member of the International Women’s Day Toronto organizing committee, said this year’s theme was “Fighting for our lives, Building our resistance.”
“The issues of concern, challenges faced by not only working women, but also gender diverse individuals and communities, they’re yet to be realized, right? So there’s still the struggle,” said Alam, a second-generation Bangladeshi immigrant.
“Coming to this country, there’s this understanding that [it’s] supposed to be championing women’s rights,” she said. “But, like many other places, we’re nowhere close to total liberation, total self determination and self autonomy for women.”
Speakers from a variety of backgrounds joined the rally to discuss workers’ rights, reproductive rights, Indigenous sterilization, the affordability crisis, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, the U.S. tariff threats, war crimes, privatized healthcare, migrant rights, the threat of a far-right government and the exploitation faced by international students.
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“Leland Bell said women were holy. Women were complete. Women are beautiful. And another elder said to us: you don’t ask the women to participate. You ask the women what to do,” said Dr. Catherine Brooks, an Anishinaabe elder and member of the Bird Clan, who kicked off the event with a blessing and prayer.
“We’re meant to laugh, we’re meant to love, we’re meant to enjoy life, and no matter what else is going on, we need to remember that and we need to help one another get there,” she added.
Brooks was joined by other Indigenous activists and elders—including Ursula Jacko and Lindsay Bain.
“Today we march. We march for our communities. We will not tolerate domestic violence, we will not tolerate inaction on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, we will not tolerate racism and poverty,” said Yolanda McClean, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.
Other communities were represented at the event through speakers. A Persian individual shared her story of coming to Canada from Iran. The co-chair of the Canadian Kurdish Community Centre highlighted the work done by Kurdish women in the fight of resistance for peace. A representative from the Sudanese Solidarity Collective discussed the ongoing war. The Women Working with Immigrant Women organization, who co-host the event with International Women’s Day Toronto, were also present and Tita Collective, an all-Filipina group, performed a musical comedy.
Other activists, such as former TMU lecturer Judy Rebick, Virginia Rodino, executive director of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, Nicole Brennan, a worker in the auto industry since 1998, and Leen, an international student who has faced exploitation, spoke at the rally.
International Women’s Day Toronto has been organizing these occasions yearly since 1978. According to its website, it is the largest North American event that honours this day.
Robin Zheng, an attendee, said this was her first time coming out to an International Women’s Day event.
“It was really positive. It definitely was a moment of resistance and challenging all of the awful things that are going on in this moment. But there was very much a feeling of celebration, also,” she said. “It just felt really good to be amongst a lot of people who are willing to do something about the challenges that they’re facing right now.”
March marks Women’s History Month. This celebration, started in Santa Rosa, California and spread across the country and the world after 1978, was made to fall in line with International Women’s Day, according to the National Women’s History Museum.
The United Nations officially recognized March 8 as International Women’s Day in 1977.
