Besides being another Sunday, March 8 also happened to be International Women's Day. I woke up that morning to a stream of loud, passionate Facebook shout-outs to all the beautiful and strong women in people's lives. At first, this made me feel a sense of pity for the ugly and weak women who might've felt left out — they deserve a day too, don’t they? Then I realized that these adjectives might be part of a blanket tribute to all the women in these Facebook users’ lives.

Hypocrites! I'm sure the very same people would gladly wield axes and swords to publicly shame misogynists who propagate patriarchal power structures through sexist, unsupported statements about women's intellect or habits in bed. All these generalizations gave me a strange itch in my left inferior temporal lobe. It left me with a lingering feeling that there was something wrong with International Women’s Day and how it celebrates women's achievements.

As I took the elevator down, I thought: maybe this itch comes from how the word woman is used. It seems a little vague and unspecific. To whom does this term refer? Just to those who have vaginas? Does it include those who don't, but still see themselves as women? What about transgender people? Anyone below men in the power structure? What about girls who are yet to blossom into women? Are the achievements of girls celebrated on that day as well? When exactly does the entry into womanhood take place? Why does the elevator not go to the ground floor? Why does the Convenience Store not sell hair ties? What exactly is the left inferior temporal lobe responsible for? All these questions puzzled me and I decided to lie down and take a nap. The Convenience Store clerk, however, woke me up and told me that I couldn't nap on the floor so I paid for my stuff and left.

Nevertheless, the itch continued. It can't simply be the non-specific nature of the terms involved. I know that type of pain all too well from working on my philosophy capstone on the perceptual basis of concepts. This itch was different. I decided to google it — International Women's Day, not the itch. What exactly are we celebrating? We've been celebrating this day since the early 20th century. That’s when I think I figured out what was bothering me.

Since time immemorial, women have been oppressed on many levels — social, political, economic and cultural — and in many parts of the world. This oppression made it especially difficult for women to achieve or gain recognition in many fields in society, including but not limited to politics, academia, sciences, sports and the arts. In the early 20th century, many women began questioning and pushing this oppressive system a lot more than in the past by breaking gender norms — inventing, discovering, creating and gaining recognition in their respective fields. Feminists then dreamed of a day when women and men would be considered equals in society. Since then, society has slowly — albeit, very slowly — been progressing towards realizing this dream.

It is natural for us to look up to these inspiring women — they gave the patriarchal system the finger and proceeded to kick it in the face as they etched their names into the history books. One of the dangers, however, in remembering and honoring these women from the past is the tendency to also celebrate the women today who kick patriarchal ass. The danger is that of subconsciously transporting and propagating the underlying power structure from the past into the present, thereby justifying the exclusive celebration of women's victories against oppression. Oppression seems to be the underlying justification to celebrate victories.

At this point, you may be compelled to say, "Sachith, women today are still oppressed on many levels.” To that I say, “Be patient and read the rest of my damn article.” Yes, women today are still oppressed on many levels, but a part of our fight against discrimination should be to fight forms of positive discrimination — every time a woman jumps through a hoop, we give her a cookie and pat her on the head. Why should a woman be especially congratulated for doing something? Did we think she couldn’t do it? We should celebrate victory and not discriminate between genders while doing so. To celebrate a woman’s victory is to not only shake her hand saying, "That was a fantastic performance,” but to also lean in and condescendingly complete the sentence by whispering the words “for a woman."

Admittedly, yes, when we congratulate a woman for her victory, we recognize that she fought through a power structure that was not in her favor to achieve something. At the same time, however, to continue to do so is to propagate and acknowledge this underlying power structure. Why is it that we still find ourselves saying, "xyz is the first man/woman to do blah?" For the love of women, please stop discriminating! Celebrating a woman’s victory reinforces her weakness. Let’s celebrate human achievements instead.

I propose that we stop celebrating women’s achievements and rename International Women’s Day to something like World Gender Day, where we fight and strive towards gender equality — and celebrate students who write articles against International Women’s Day. This way we don't discriminate, and all genders come together to do what International Women’s Day tries to do — fight sexism and gender discrimination. Let us together try to recognize a gender bias and aid in its disestablishment.

What about remembering the great women from the past who inspire us? We should stop making International Women's Day a day to remember Marie Curie merely because she was a female scientist. Yes, I admit that it was and still is hard for women in many fields to make contributions or to gain recognition, but we should find a way to recognize their struggle without having to periodically celebrate women's victories. Let’s remember Curie as a great scientist first and then as a woman, instead of bringing her up on March 8 because she was a woman who also happened to be a scientist.

You might then want to say, "Sachith, you're missing the point of International Women's Day — it’s to appreciate the women in your life." To this I ask, “What exactly should we appreciate women for?” Answer: [insert another positive, yet discriminatory generalized statement about women here.] Stop it. If I understand this correctly, you’re grouping all women together, disregarding their individual differences by making a generalized statement that definitely won’t apply to everybody in the group and then subjecting them to some form of flattery. This is sexist too, similar to the way that the generalizing statement, “Women are bad at math,” is sexist.

“But Sachith, can’t I just appreciate people? Why do you have to be such a barty boober?” I’m not saying don’t appreciate people. I’m saying, appreciate people for who they are as individuals. You’re not really appreciating a person when all you do is appreciate the group that they belong to. The very act of appreciating someone is lost when you appreciate them for merely belonging to a massive group that they may not have made a conscious choice to belong to. For example: “Sachith, I appreciate you because you’re Indian.” My response to that would just be, “Well, that’s great. There are 1.25 billion more back home, and I assure you that not everyone’s like me. So you’re going to have to do better than that if you want to show me your appreciation.”

So the woman-appreciating act finally boils down to being: you’re a woman, now let me find out what to appreciate you for. Notice that the latter half of that statement has absolutely nothing to do with the first perceptive observation that was made. To be clear, when you appreciate someone, you appreciate the person, and not the group that they belong to.

Let’s make March 8 a day to remind and educate people about the oppressive nature of patriarchal structures. Let’s make this day a reason to work towards eradicating that power structure. The day need not be completely abandoned. After all, it got me thinking and writing about this issue, and subsequently got you to think critically about it as well.