International Women’s Day is not about flowers, candy or dinner dates. Of course, we would still enjoy those things, but that isn’t the point.
Women’s Day is about celebrating women’s accomplishments. It is about gender equality. It is about empowering women. It is about recognizing the hard fought battles women have fought to gain civil and human rights. Struggles that many women all over the world still endure.
Women’s’ Day started with a very narrow concept – improving working conditions in the garment industry. However, its rallies and protests over the past century have benefited men and women in many ways all over the world.
The Socialist Party of America declared the first National Women’s Day on February 28, 1909 in honor of the New York garment workers’ strike of 1908 the long hours and poor working conditions that women endured in the garment manufacturing industry, and continued it annually on the last Sunday in February until 1913.
In 1910 at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, Clara Zetkin, of the ‘Women’s Office’ of the German Social Democratic Party proposed an International Women’s Day. The proposal extended the narrow definition that describes the garment workers’ Women’s’ Day to include not only equal pay and better working conditions for women in the workforce, but also causes that were important to all women, such as the right to vote and hold elected office.
The conference of more than 100 women from 17 countries unanimously approved the proposal. Over one million people participated in rallies in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland on March 19, 1911 to observe the first International Women’s Day. The rally attendees demanded women’s rights to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.
On March 25, 1911 the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York City occurred. There were 146 casualties, all women who either died in the fire or jumping from the burning building. Subsequent International Women’s Day Rallies referred to that tragic event as an example of the dangers of the substandard working conditions that existed in garment factories.
Russia observed its first National Women’s Day in on the last Sunday in February, the date that the Socialist Party of America observed its National Women’s Day. They used the event to protest the World War I. Beginning in 1914 women in other European countries joined their Russian sisters in protesting the war on International Women’s Day.
In 1917, the last Sunday in February by the Julian calendar used in Russia at the time fell on March 8 by the Gregorian calendar used in other parts of Europe. Women employed to make weapons for World War I at the Putilov armaments factory in St. Petersburg, Russia, chose this date to join the February Revolution and go on strike to demand bread during a food shortage. Men and women joined them in their protest for “bread and peace.” Several days later, the street protesters found leadership in the form of a collaborative effort between the Duma http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/duma (A Russian council of representatives) leaders who formed a “Temporary Committee of the State Duma,” to take governmental responsibility in Petrograd and a group of socialist intellectuals who led soldiers in the forming of the “Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.” On March 15, the newly formed provisional government announced its formation. Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne that same day. The provisional government subsequently granted women the right to vote.
In 1945, the Charter of the United Nations became the first international agreement that proclaimed gender equality as a fundamental human right.
Not coincidentally, March 8 is the first day of Universal Women’s Week (March 8-14), March is International Women’s Month, and Women’s History Month.
The directors of the Women for Women programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, while discussing ways that women can build bridges of peace, thought of the idea for women to come together on an actual bridge that borders their two countries, to make a stand for peace and for the end of violence against women. This idea sparked a global initiative. Today Women for Women programs all over the world are sponsoring a “Meet me on the Bridge” event. If you live or work near a bridge, so stand on it to add your voice to the collective. If you don’t have a nearby bridge, don’t worry, you can stand on a virtual bridge provided by Google especially for this event.
For more information about International Women’s Day, visit the following Web sites.
International Women’s Day
UN Woman Watch International Women’s Day
United Nations International Women’s Day
Women for Women
World Health Organization International Women’s Day podcast
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