Where we’ve come from

THE International Women’s Day we know in 2019, was sparked by labour movements early last century.

On 28 February, 1909, America’s first National Woman’s day was celebrated, organised by the Socialist Party of America to recognise a conditions strike of garment workers in New York the previous year.

Across the Atlantic, a meeting in Copenhagen named The Socialist International, created its own Women’s Day a year later, to champion women’s rights and support women’s suffrage globally. More than 100 women from 17 countries overwhelmingly approved that the day be established.

After Copenhagen came the first annual International Women’s Day in March of 1911.

It was acknowledged in Denmark, Austria, Germany and Switzerland by women and men attending rallies for women’s rights to vote, to hold public office, for rights to work, for an end to employment discrimination and to attend vocational training.

Through the Great War, Russian women got involved in IWD, which had become a vehicle to generate activism and protest for peace at the time. 1917, was the year Russian women received voting rights. But it wasn’t until 8 March 1975 that the United Nations officially jumped on board the celebrations, during International Women’s Year.

Through the 90s, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was signed by 189 governments, focussing their visions on a world where women and girls can have choice, be educated and political, earn an income and live fee of violence and discrimination.

In the last five years, the UN with nongovernment organisations worldwide have been taking stock, to see what progress has been made in achieving better international women’s rights, general women’s empowerment and gender parity.