Better by Half

International Women’s Day, March 8, is still a rather important holiday in Russia. Not only was its celebration in 1917 a catalyst for the fateful February Revolution of that year, but it lived on to accrete all manner of meaning and significance in Russia: celebrating the equality and importance of women, while adopting many of the trappings of Valentine’s Day, where men gift the women in their lives with flowers and candy.

So when Natalia Beskhlebnaya pitched us on the idea of a story on Russia’s women diplomats (page 30), it seemed a natural that we would slot it into our March/April issue.

None of the other feature stories in this issue are explicitly related to women or women’s issues. Yet most all of the very qualified and capable individuals who staff, write, translate, edit and generally support this magazine happen to be women. We certainly don’t need a made-up holiday to celebrate or acknowledge their contributions, but I’ll take any excuse I can to give a shout out to their talents and wisdom.