What is International Women’s Day and why do we celebrate it?
Posted on: 08/Mar/2017 10:26:13 AM
Across world, the International Women’s Day is celebrated today, the 8th of March. The special day commemorates achievements by women in different facets including politics, social welfare, literature, science, and so on. On this day, there are special art performances, talks, rallies, networking events and more taking place. Notably, the search engine giant Google had organized Google Doodle where women talked about their ambitions and dreams completing the sentence One Day I will.
A march for women took place on 5th March, Sunday on behalf of Care International. This was led by Annie Lennox, Helen Pankhurst, Sadiq Khan and Bianca Jagger.
The beginning of women’s day
The actual start of women’s day remains still unknown. The roots of IWD are guessed to belong to 1908 when more than 15,000 women went on a march throughout the city of New York with the purpose being vote rights, increase in pay and lessening working hours.
After one year form then, on 28th February, the International Women’s Day was celebrated in the US, following Socialist Party of America’s declaration.
Official recognition of IWD
In the year 1911, the IWD was officially recognized and thus, 2011 marked to be the centenary year. And now, the year 2017 is the 106th year of celebrating IWD. During his period as the US president, in 2011, Barack Obama called the month of March as Women’s History Month.
How is IWD still live and celebrated?
The ultimate aim of celebrating women’s day is to obtain gender equality for women. Women are still not set completely free in politics or business or others and the gender gap is to be blamed for the same. Compared to men, education, health and violence towards women remains lesser and worse.
Until 2186, the gender gap will persist, says World Economic Forum. Women from different traits and parts of the world will get together and promote recognition of inequalities, and also celebrate achievements made by women who need to overcome hardships and barriers placed in front.
Theme of IWD 2017
Be bold for change is the theme of women’s day this year for encouraging actions for obliterating gender inequality. This is really an active message that almost every woman would agree to and struggle for. This will be seen resonating among men, women and girls and boys across the world and take the issue to the streets and march this year.
Live Chennai Wish you all a Very, Happy Women’s Day.
