International womens day

International Womens Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by womens groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development. International Womens Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for liberty, equality, fraternity marched on Versailles to demand womens suffrage. The idea of an International Womens Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. Following is a brief chronology of the most important events: In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Womans Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913. The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Womens Day, international in character, to honour the movement for womens rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women.

The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.

As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Womens Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.

Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Womens Day.

1913-1914 As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Womens Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their ...