Our society has evolved with a huge number of struggles, movements and revolutions. What our society looks like today is a reflection of all the past events that happened all around the world. So many dates on the calendar signify something extraordinary and that is why we celebrate them every year.
So, what is it about the International Women’s Day? Why do we really celebrate it on 8thMarch every year? As a matter of fact, the commemoration of this day is not just because of a single event. It marks a huge history of events which challenged gender disparity all around the world. It dates back to the early 1900’s, when the industrial world was rapidly progressing and population growth was at peak.
The movement began in 1908 in the New York City, America when about 15,000 women marched for equal pay at work, lesser working hours and equal voting rights.
Following the International Conference of Working Women in Germany in 1910, the demand for recognition of the IWD was spread to countries like Austria, Denmark and Switzerland.
Then in 1917, the Russian Women went on strike for “bread and peace” when 2 million Russian soldiers died in the World War 1.
Then in 1975, this day was first celebrated by the United Nations. From 1996 to 2000, various annual themes like “Celebrating the Past, Planning for the Future”, “Women at the Peace Table”, “Women and Human Rights” were adopted by the UN.
The global internationalwomensday.com digital hub was introduced in 2001 to establish a platform for recognizing the achievements of women all over the world. The website is still active and has a huge traffic on 8th March every year.
In order to mark the 100 year centenary of the International Women’s Day, the former American President Barrack Obama marked March 2011 as the “Women’s History Month” to honour the extra ordinary accomplishments of women.
Since then, the International Women’s Day is widely celebrated all over the world to accelerate gender parity. There has been a shift of attitudes of people towards women and significant steps have been taken to achieve gender equality. The colours Purple, Green and White, signifying Justice and Dignity, Hope and Purity respectively symbolize the IWD. But at present, the colour Purple is internationally used to symbolize the day.
To keep the purpose of this day alive, we all should constantly strive to be good citizens and value the principle of gender parity in all walks of life.
-Sakshi Aneja
