The origin of March 8th as the International Women’s Day is related to events that happened over 150 years ago in the US. Unfortunately for many years, this fact was buried since in the minds of some people it had too many communist connotations.
In 1975 the International Women’s Year was announced by the United Nations (UN). As a consequence, two years later (1977) the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring March 8th – the Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace Day.
Before being recognized by the UN, the International Women’s Day was celebrated successfully in Western Europe, then in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Asia. Since the 1970s, International Women Day was being celebrated worldwide, and became expanded into the “Women’s History Month” celebrated in March. This is a time to remember women’s struggles for equal rights and recognition, women achievements and also how much still needs to be done to achieve a real equality.
Below is its short history…
On March 8th, 1857 women from New York City stopped working in protest of bad conditions, long working day (12 hours) and low pay. Instead, they organized a march in their poor neighborhood. The march was brutally broken up by police when the women reached a wealthy district of town. This marks the birth of March 8th as Women’s Day.
Another march took place on the same day almost fifty years later, in 1908. It was triggered by the death of 128 women trapped on the high floor in Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Their slogan was “bread and roses” – “bread” for economical security and “roses” – for a better life. It also protested child labor and sweatshop working conditions.
In 1910 the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen created a Women’s Day, “to aid in the attainment of women’s suffrage.” It was honored with marches and demonstrations of women for their rights, especially in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Denmark. The creation of this day is attributed to a German activist, Clara Zetkin. She was the editor of Die Gleichheit (Equality) and the leading theoretician of women’s activism. In these times, the most important issues were voting rights. People who fought for voting rights and for social, economic and political reforms which will equal women rights to men were called suffragists and suffragettes. Vladimir Lenin declared March 8th as International Women’s Day in 1922 to honor the women’s role in the 1917 Russian Revolution and this was one of the reasons this day was obliterated from culture in Western European countries for some time.
Referring to the history of Women’s rights – neither the American nor the French Constitutions at the end of the 18th century gave women the right to vote, although they influenced positively women’s role in the society in other aspects of life (for instance, inheritance). The territory of Wyoming was the first to give women voting rights in 1869; New Zealand was the first and only country to allow women to vote before the end of the 19th century, in 1893. Women received voting rights in Poland and several other European countries just after World War I in 1918; in the USA in 1920, which was passed in the 19th Amendment. In Switzerland women had to wait until 1971 to be able to vote. Still, this marked the beginning of acknowledgment of women’s role in the society.
There is much more that needs to be achieved for women equal rights and empowerment. Although more women than men graduate from college in the US, they represent a small fraction of business/corporate/political leadership and they are a minority in Congress. In some countries (such as Afghanistan) there is a significant decline in women rights related to unequal education, dress code and a freedom of movement.