International Women's Day - March 8

International Women's Day (IWD) connects women around the world and aims to inspire them to achieve their full potential. It is an opportunity to highlight the abuse of women’s rights across the world, while celebrating the central role that women play in creating a fairer and more just world.

The first International Women’s Day was in 1911. It followed unanimous agreement at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen the previous year.

Clara Zetkin, the German socialist and campaigner for Women’s rights, proposed at the conference that every year in every country there should be a day when women came together in solidarity to campaign for equality. In 1911, one of the key issues was votes for women.

Plans for the first International Women's Day demonstration were spread by word of mouth and in the press. In the UK, various articles were devoted to International Women's Day: 'Women and Parliament', 'The Working Women and Municipal Affairs', 'What Has the Housewife got to do with Politics?' etc analyzed the question of the equality of women in the government and in society. All articles emphasized the point that it was absolutely necessary to make parliament more democratic by extending the franchise to women.

Success of the first International Women's Day in 1911 exceeded all expectation. Meetings were organized in small towns and even the villages halls were packed so full that male workers were asked to give up their places for women.

In 1913 International Women's Day was transferred to 8 March and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since. During International Women's Year in 1975, IWD was given official recognition by the United Nations and was taken up by many governments. International Women's Day is marked by a national holiday in over 30 countries, including China, Russia, Macedonia, Vietnam and Zambia. Whether officially recognised in this way or not, IWD has great significance for women in their struggles for social and political equality , and decent work.

From the outset, IWD has been closely associated with the political and industrial struggles of women. As well as the campaigns for voting rights, working women in the US used it to campaign over pay and conditions in the garment industry, particularly in 1911 when over 140 workers in New York were killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. In 1913, with war looming, women across Europe held peace rallies on 8 March. In Russia in 1917, Women’s day demonstrations against the war were part of the first phase of the revolution.

The day also serves often as a focus for peace campaigns. The specific costs to women in war situations around the globe every year are devastating, and tend to be ignored by policy makers and war makers.


For information on TUC events for IWD, go to http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/index.cfma

The official IWD website can be found at: http://www.internationalwomensday.com/