And now - do close your eyes and listen

Today’s letters: Please don’t wish me ‘Happy Women’s Day’

Your Saturday columns on International Women’s Day brought back memories of my childhood in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. There also, International Women’s Day was celebrated every March 8, having replaced the “bourgeois” Mother’s Day. Widely known and referred only by the Czech acronym MDZ, it was a big deal at every school and every workplace, as it lent itself to communist propaganda and feminist rhetoric very similar to that which would come to North America two decades later.

The biggest irony of all: On this holiday, the overworked “liberated” women were the ones expected to do everything related to the festivities, from entertainment to food preparation. When I came to Canada it was refreshing not to hear about the International Women’s Day — until recently.

Please don’t wish me “Happy Women’s Day,” even as a joke.

B. Sherriff, Mississauga, Ont.

This is the betrayal I have been complaining about.

Women suffer assault and derision at Tahrir march

on International Women's Day Iran forces fire tear gas at protesters: opposition website Foreign reporters are excluded. Some report various clashes.