I grew up in Lithuania (formerly part of the Soviet Union). In my hometown, March 8th was always the day to buy tulips and give them to the “important women in your life” and teachers at school, and tell them how beautiful they look or somehow emphasize that they are valuable to you and love them. Nobody ever talked about women's rights. It was always quite awkward, but everyone pretended to enjoy playing these roles.

The larger your bouquet, the more you love the woman. At least, such was the pressure I felt as a child. It was kind of funny because I used to take my parents' money—technically my mother's money too—to buy her tulips or roses. I would buy roses because I wanted to somehow go against the system.

My brother would also win the bouquet competition because he was almost ten years older than me and had always had money for a big bunch of flowers.

I remember feeling guilty because no amount of flowers could pay off the debt I owed my mother, and I felt like I was in debt- there was something transactional about it all. You count love by the number of flowers you give.

More importantly, it was the day when men suddenly remembered women existed - for all the wrong reasons - but then March 9th would come and they go back to putting most of the household responsibilities on women's shoulders.

My mom made breakfast for me every morning. Not just cereals with milk, but real porridge or syrnyky. I always came home and lunch was ready. Who cooked dinner? My mom. She also worked full-time.

I think the women in my life oddly cherished this day because at least one day was “their day” and they didn’t have to think about household chores – which is, of course, incredibly sad and shows how underappreciated and overtasked women were in that social structure that I grew up in.

Now I live in Ukraine. Today I saw people selling tulips, but I didn’t see many women carry them, which looks like a riot. I also just watched a street interview where most women said they no longer celebrate this day.

I guess that, after all, even this “women’s day” was more important for men than for women.

In this part of the world, the day has never been about rights.

March 8th was just another occasion for a patriarchal society to justify its rightfulness by giving people a “holiday” and distracting them from the problems and struggles of everyday life.