International Women's Day

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, political, and cultural achievements of women. The day is celebrated annually on March 8. In the twenty-first century, the date has been used as more than just a remembrance of the historical accomplishments of women around the world. International Women’s Day has been a call to action, urging world leaders and ordinary citizens to continue the fight for gender equality and women’s and girls’ rights.

Background

The origins of International Women’s Day date back to the early twentieth century. During this time, women around the world were calling for better working conditions and for the right to vote. In 1908, women in New York City’s garment district went on strike to protest the horrific working conditions to which they were subjected. Many women at that time were also calling for women’s suffrage, which would give women the right to vote. In early 1908, fifteen thousand women marched through New York City’s streets to demand better pay, shorter working hours, and the right to vote.

The following year, the Socialist Party of America marked the one-year anniversary of that march by holding the first National Women’s Day on February 28. The party would continue this tradition through 1913.

In 1910, the second International Conference on Working Women was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. There, Clara Zetkin, a German activist and leader of the women’s office in Germany’s Social Democratic Party, came up with the idea for an International Women’s Day that would be celebrated in every country around the world on the same day. According to Zetkin, the day would not just be a celebration of women, but also an opportunity for women to make their demands for equality heard on a large scale. The women at the conference, who represented women’s interest groups from seventeen countries, gave their approval for Zetkin’s idea.

On March 19, 1911, women and men in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria celebrated the first International Women’s Day by attending marches and rallies, during which women continued to speak out against harsh working conditions, gender discrimination, and the lack of women involved in politics around the world. Just a week later, news of a deadly fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York spread around the world. The fire left 145 workers, many of them immigrant women, dead. The fire further galvanized International Women’s Day participants to continue the fight for women workers in the years that followed.

As mounting global tensions led to World War I (1914–1918), women were among the most prominent advocates for peace, including at the International Congress of Women in 1915. On the eve of the 1917 Russian Revolution, women in Russia started a four-day strike for “Bread and Peace” on March 8 that galvanized additional protests throughout the country. Days later, on March 15, Russian czar Nicholas II abdicated and the new Russian government gave women the right to vote—a year before British women and three years before American women gained that right. The Soviet Union subsequently declared "Woman's Day" a national holiday on March 8. That date eventually caught on with some other nations celebrating some form of holiday for women as well.

As more women gained the right to vote throughout the world during the twentieth century and other international conflicts gained global attention, International Women’s Day was not widely celebrated. It was not until 1975, during the peak of the women’s rights movement, that the United Nations (UN) recognized International Women’s Day for the first time during International Women’s Year. Two years later, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution for a Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace. Member states could observe this day on any date according to their national traditions.

In 1996, the United Nations adopted a yearly theme for International Women’s Day. The first theme was “Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future.”

Topic Today

Other themed International Women’s Days followed, but the celebration of the day was relatively low-profile through the first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2011, the celebration of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day led to US president Barack Obama’s administration releasing a fifty-page report on the progress of women in the United States for Women’s History Month. Still, International Women’s Day continued to receive little national attention in many countries for several more years.

This changed following the election of Donald Trump to the US presidency in 2016. After a contentious election that saw Trump beating former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential candidate for a major party in US history, women across the country began to protest the new president and his administration’s policies concerning the rights of women and other marginalized groups. The first major protest was held on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration. The 2017 Women’s March saw protests across the country and around the world.

Such protests continued when women in the United States organized “A Day without a Woman” to fall on International Women’s Day on March 8, 2017. The day, on which many women skipped work or class and some did not participate in the economy at all, was meant to symbolically show the importance of women to society. Many experts also saw it as a nod to the first International Women’s Days, many of which were rooted in protests against oppressive institutions and governments. Women’s issues remained in the spotlight throughout 2017 as the #MeToo movement gained national and international attention. After allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced against powerful men in various fields, women began using the hashtag #MeToo (a campaign originated by civil rights activist Tarana Burke more than a decade earlier) to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault on social media. Marches and protests continued late into the year and a second Women’s March was held on January 20, 2018.

In 2018, the organizers of International Women’s Day built on the activist momentum that had started in 2017 and announced that the theme of that year’s day would be “Press for Progress.” UN secretary general António Guterres was among the prominent figures to suggest that this was an especially pivotal time in the history of women’s rights. The 2018 UN campaign called on people around the world to find ways to be more gender inclusive. It also called for more gender parity in the workplace, sports, and technology, among other areas.

The renewed interest in International Women's Day continued into the 2020s. Although the COVID-19 pandemic posed logistical challenges, marches in support of women's rights were still held across the globe. In 2021, the UN theme for the holiday emphasized the impact of the pandemic on society and the role of women as leaders. In the US, the political implications of International Women's Day remained highly visible, especially with demonstrations that often tied into opposition to Trump's 2020 and 2024 presidential campaigns.

Bibliography

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