International Womens DayMarch 8International Womens Day 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.
In the years before 1910, from the turn of the 20th century, women in industrially developing countries were entering paid work in some numbers. Their jobs were sex segregated, mainly in textiles, manufacturing and domestic services where conditions were wretched and wages worse than depressed. Trade unions were developing and industrial disputes broke out, including among sections of non-unionised women workers. In Europe, the flames of revolution were being kindled.
Many of the changes taking place in womens lives pushed against the political restrictions surrounding them. Throughout Europe, Britain, America and, to a lesser extent, Australia, women from all social strata began to campaign for the right to vote.
In the United States in 1903, women trade unionists and liberal professional women who were also campaigning for womens voting rights set up the Womens Trade Union League to help organise women in paid work around their political and economic welfare. These were dismal and bitter years for many women with terrible working conditions and home lives riven by poverty and often violence.
In 1908, on the last Sunday in February, socialist women in the United States initiated the first Womens Day when large demonstrations took place calling for the vote and the political and economic rights of women. The following year, 2,000 people attended a Womens Day rally in Manhattan.