International Women’s Day is an annual event celebrated on 8th March. It’s a day for celebrating women’s achievements, while also highlighting the work towards gender equality. Because throughout history, and still today, women have been largely underrepresented and unfortunately not been granted all the same rights as men. Let’s take a look at how International Women’s Day came about, and how it has been celebrated throughout the more than 100 years the day has been internationally recognised.

In 1908, 15 000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote. This event is recognised as part of the origin for International Women’s Day and the fight for gender equality. A year later, the Socialist party of America created the first National Women’s Day in the United States, and the day was celebrated on the last Sunday in February for the first few years after. Clara Zetkin, a German activist and women’s rights advocate, gets credited for suggesting to make an international women’s day. The idea was presented at the second International Conference for Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910, and between the 100 women representing 17 countries at the conference, they unanimously agreed to every year, on the same day, celebrate a women’s day to press their demands for equality. And thus, the International Women’s Day became an annual event. 

On 19 March 1911, the first International Women’s Day was celebrated in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, and over a million women were campaigning for equality and to end discrimination. In 1913 International Women’s Day was officially set to 8 March, and it has ever since been celebrated by women on that day globally.

This was only the beginning for women’s fight for equality and having equal rights as men in society. Take voting for example, in 1911 only two countries in the world allowed women full voting rights during national elections, New Zealand and Finland, and the fight for women’s suffrage across the world has been hard. Following the pioneering countries, women gained the rights to vote in national elections in Norway in 1913, Denmark and Iceland in 1915, Russia in 1917, and Germany and United Kingdom followed in 1918. Many more countries followed throughout the 20th century, but still today, women’s suffrage is yet to become reality in the entire world. 

Today, 8 March 2020, marks the 109th International Women’s Day. And even with over a century of fighting, the world has still not, in the year of 2020, reached full gender equality. The road to equality is long, but progress is being made, day by day.

Data Inter-Parliamentary Women have collected shows that over the last 25 years, women’s political representation have doubled, but still only about a fourth of all parliamentary seats across the world are taken up by women, and amongst the highest political positions only just over twenty countries had women taking up positions as Head of Government or State, per October 2019. We can see a similar picture when it comes to the amount of women holding the position of CEO in a larger company. Though it is the highest number to date, the number of women in CEO positions out of the Fortune 500, is only at around 7 percent. 

In sports, traditionally women were not allowed to participate. Sports and games were originally exclusively for men, but times are changing, and since sports events provide such a powerful arena for promoting gender equality and showcasing that women can be just as strong as men, many projects have been set in place over the last few decades to increase women’s participation in large sports events. According to the International Olympic Committee, the first fully gender balanced olympic event was the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is expected to have 48.8 percent female athletes participating!

International Women’s Day is celebrated globally, and in some countries, such as Russia, it is a public holiday, and in the US, March was in 2011 proclaimed as ‘Women’s History Month’ by former president Obama. However, according to the World Economic Forum, we don’t expect to see a fully gender equal world until 2186, and essentially, in 2019 women in the UK worked for free from 14 November until the end of the year because of the gender differences in salaries across the country.

Movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp have shed light on the sexual abuse, violence and harassment against women in entertainment, art and politics, giving survivors a voice in media. Both important in breaking the silence and opening the conversation about the oppression of women in professional settings.

As mentioned, United Nations’ theme for IWD 2020 is Each for Equal (#EachforEqual) - “An equal world is an enabled world” - recognising how each one of us as individuals can make a difference. Millions of women are going to celebrate this day and continue the fight for a fully gender equal world. This is a global event, and do not belong to any one country, organisation or social group. Today will be marked with marches, conferences, networking events, arts performances and much more, all to showcase the strength and accomplishments of women and continuing to fight for the same goal. 

Happy International Women’s Day!