International Women’s Day is a very famous day throughout the world. Celebrated on the 8th of March of each year, this day enables to put the highlight on the struggles of women for a more equal world between women and men. Today we are going to talk a bit about this special day, from its origins to what it means nowadays.
The origins of the International Women’s Day
Women’s Day finds its roots mainly in North America and Europe.
The first milestone of this special day goes back to 1848, in the United States. During an anti-slavery convention, women were banned from speaking. Outraged, two american women, Elizabeth Cady and Lucretia Mott organized their own women’s rights convention in New York, where they invited a few hundred people. During this convention, they demanded civil, social and political rights for all the women of their country.
The first official celebration of Women’s day goes back to 1909 in the United States, when it was celebrated on 28th February, 1909. On this day, the Socialist Party of America celebrated workers’ strikes and women marched too, demanding more equal rights and better working conditions. This day is known as commemorating the first political movement and activism for women’ rights and embodies the first time Women’s Day was celebrated.
How the movement spread and became an international day
The movement in Europe
Seeing how the movement became popular, the German socialist Luise Zietz suggested establishing an “International Women's Day”. In 1910 in Copenhagen, Denmark, the proposition was submitted at the general meeting of the Socialist International. Delegates from 17 countries, including one hundred women, approved the proposal to promote more equal rights and voting rights to women. The first International Women's Day happened on March, 19th 1911 in some European countries such as Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark. On this day, more than one million men and women gathered to demand the right to vote, hold public office, better working rights and conditions and end job discriminations for women.
Later, in February 1913, Russian women celebrated their first International Women’s Day. One year later, Germany celebrated International Women’s Day on Sunday, March 8th. This day was dedicated for women to get the voting right, which they only got in 1918. In 1917 Russian women protested during a strike for “Bread and Peace” during the First World War. They protested on the 8th of March, and four days ago the Czar of Russia resigned, so there was an intermediate government which granted women the right to vote. Women’s Day has always been celebrated on March 8th ever since.
Until 1967, the movement spread in almost every country of the world, and especially in the communist countries. It was very popular in USSR, China and communism-influenced countries like Eastern, Central and Balkanic Europe. After 1967, the movement was taken up by the feminist wave and embodied a symbolic day in the fight of the activists for the women’s rights.
The United Nations
In 1975, the United Nations officially proclaimed the 8th of March as the day for Women’s Rights and International Peace, encouraging all the countries to celebrate this day and work for women’ rights all the other days of the year. This recognition of this day and the fight for women’ rights gave the struggle a much more legitimate and important value, securing the importance of gender equality across the world and the urge to achieve great improvements towards that aim.
The aims of the International Women’s Day nowadays
Today International Women’s Day perpetuates the tradition of fighting for women’s rights and gender equality in the world. We know that gender equality is still very backwards in certain countries and even in the mentalities, but the feminist movements of the last few years really tend to change the mentality and give women the same rights and equality men already enjoy. For example, in 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was signed by 189 countries, all agreeing to focus on 12 key points related to the matter of equality between men and women.
Also, in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Goal 5 specifies that the signing countries commit themselves to “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. The fight for women’s rights and gender equality is still a very important and modern society subject, showing two things : that the fight is definitely not over and will continue for many more years, decades probably, and that now gender equality and the respect of women’s rights have become a real criteria to identify the development of a country on a social basis.
Overall, International Women’s Day is an important day symbolizing the struggle for women’s rights and gender equality, but it has to be mentioned that even if this day is important, it doesn’t mean that the fight has to be forgotten all the rest of the year. It is a continuous struggle that deserves attention in order to build a better world and a better future for the next generations.
Emma & Manon
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