Imagine a world where women had the same opportunities as men—a world where women-dominated jobs earned the same amount of money as male-dominated jobs. Imagine a world where there was no longer any inequality between the male and female genders. This is what International Women’s Day (or IWD) is all about.
A world like this is possible. And it is International Women’s Day that brings women from around the world together to eradicate inequality between men and women. We want to shed some light on this important day and help fill you in on the history and importance of March 8.
Read here all about International Women`s Day on the 8th of March:
What is International Women’s Day?
Marked annually on March 8th of every year, International Women’s Day is a global celebration of women’s achievements around the world. Achievements of the social, economic, political, and cultural kinds.
On International Women’s Day, women worldwide come together to raise awareness about the inequalities that still exist worldwide. To recognize the achievements of outstanding women and raise money for charities focused on the female gender.
What is the History of International Women’s Day, and When did it start?
While the Socialist Party of America did not officially recognize International Women’s Day until 1908, the day’s first milestone dates back to 1848. This was when the first women’s rights convention took place in New York City. Several hundred women gathered together to demand a change in social, political, religious, and civil rights.
The day itself was first celebrated on February 28th, 1908 where garment workers began protesting against their unjust working conditions. The following year, women’s rights were celebrated in Copenhagen. From this day forward, women worldwide chose to gather every year to bring about change.
Why is International Women’s Day celebrated?
While women’s achievements should be celebrated every day of our lives, women’s Day gives women a chance to come together on a united front to celebrate everything that we are.
Not only does this day allow us to recognize outstanding women and their achievements. It also allows us to shed light on the gender inequalities that still exist around the world today.
Although women have come a long way in Western Countries, you can see how slow progress is over the years in this visualization of the different topics on the United Nations website.
Women still face job discrimination, sexual assault, occupational differences, wage gaps, and unrealistic expectations that begin at a young age.
Take the Ted Talk by Reshma Saujani, for example. In her talk, she defines how women in society are expected to be perfect, while men are expected to be brave.
This idealism of perfection is an unrealistic goal and leads to self-doubt and diminished self-confidence. International Women’s Day helps to shine a light on these issues to make tomorrow a better future for women.
Of course, it’s also important that we celebrate how far women in Western Countries have come in the last century. Sadly, however, not all countries in the world have come to evoke change for women.
In some countries, women have no educational or occupational opportunities at all. In other countries, women are raped and murdered with no threat of penalty whatsoever.
And still, in other countries, women are faced with things like female circumcision without any anesthetic or pain medication.
And this my friends, is why we celebrate International Women’s Day each and every year. To bring change and make for a brighter future not only in Western Countries but around the world.
What are the different themes of IWD?
“I am Generation Equality – Realizing Women’s Rights”. This was last year’s theme for International Women’s Day. This year the theme will be “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world”. The theme will be focused on helping women to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and creating a more equal future moving forward. You can find the website with more information here.
Themes like this are important because they help to highlight the most prevalent issues surrounding women today. They also help to support and empower women when faced with the here and now challenges of everyday life.
In conclusion, we encourage all women who are reading this to participate in some of the many International Women’s Day events around the world safely online. Here you can register for the online event. In social media use these tags: #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021.
But if you do not have the time to participate in these events, you can empower women in other ways by raising money for charity or simply by offering encouraging words to the women in the space around you.
On March 8th, let’s all come together and empower one another – because women truly are amazing.
Read more:
Self-empowerment and how you can achieve it!
How to Boost Your Self-Confidence with the right mindset!
