International
Women's Day is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. Also commemorated at the United Nations, it 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 Women's 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
women's suffrage.
The idea of an International Women's 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:
1909
In
accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America,
the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United
States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last
Sunday of that month through 1913.
1910
The Socialist International, meeting in
Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international
in character, to
honour the movement for women's 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.
1911
As a result of the decision taken at
Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's 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 Women's Day.
1913-1914 As part of the peace movement brewing
on
the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their
first International Women's 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 sisters.
1917
With
2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again
chose the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and
peace". Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike,
but the women
went on
anyway. The rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced
to
abdicate and the provisional Government
granted
women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23 February
on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on
the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.
Since those early years, International
Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in
developed and developing countries
alike. The growing
international women's movement, which has been
strengthened by four
global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the
commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand
women's rights and participation in the political and economic
process.
Increasingly, International Women's Day is a
time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to
celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who
have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's
rights. |