International Women’s Day celebrated was widely celebrated in India and across the globe with cards, gifts, and events.
Going back to the history of this day, it was spurred on by the universal female suffrage movement that started in New Zealand, and International Women’s Day originated from labor movements in North America and Europe during the early 20th century
Later, it became a global holiday celebrated annually on March 8 to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women.
This day also became a nucleus in the women’s rights movement, bringing attention to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women.
The earliest version was purportedly a “Women’s Day” organized by the Socialist Party of America in New York City on February 28, 1909.
This day stirred up German delegates at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference to propose “a special Women’s Day” be organized annually, albeit with no set date. The next year saw the first demonstrations and commemorations of International Women’s Day across Europe.
After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917 (the beginning of the February Revolution), IWD was made a national holiday on March 8; it was subsequently celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. The holiday was associated with far-left movements and governments until its adoption by the global feminist movement in the late 1960s. IWD became a mainstream global holiday following its adoption by the United Nations in 1977.
International Women’s Day is commemorated in a variety of ways worldwide; it is a public holiday in several countries, and observed socially or locally in others. The UN observes the holiday in connection with a particular issue, campaign, or theme in women’s rights. In some parts of the world, IWD still reflects its political origins, being marked by protests and calls for radical change; in other areas, particularly in the West, it is largely sociocultural and centered on a celebration of womanhood.
What Colors Symbolize International Women’s Day?
Purple, green, and white are the colors of International Women’s Day. Purple signifies justice and dignity. Green symbolizes hope. White represents purity, albeit a controversial concept. These colors found their way from the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the UK in 1908.
Global Movement in History
America: The earliest purported Women’s Day observance, called “National Woman’s Day”, was held on February 28, 1909, in New York City, organized by the Socialist Party of America
Denmark: In August 1910, an International Socialist Women’s Conference was organized ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Germany: Inspired in part by the American socialists, German delegates Clara Zetkin, Käte Duncker, Paula Thiede, and others proposed the establishment of an annual “Women’s Day”, although no date was specified. with 100 delegates, representing 17 countries agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights, including women’s franchise.
Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland: On March 19, 1911, the first International Women’s Day was celebrated by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland.
In Austria-Hungary alone, there were 300 demonstrations, with women parading on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, carrying banners honoring the martyrs of the Paris Commune. Across Europe, women demanded the right to vote and to hold public office and protested against employment sex discrimination.
International Women’s Day in the USSR and other communist nations
Women’s demonstration for bread and peace, Petrograd, Russia and on March 8, 1917, in Petrograd, February 23, 1917, women textile workers began a demonstration that eventually engulfed the whole city, demanding “Bread and Peace”—an end to World War I, to food shortages, and to czarism.
This observed the beginning of the February Revolution, which alongside the October Revolution, made up the second Russian Revolution.
Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote, “23 February (8th March) was International Woman’s Day and meetings and actions were foreseen. ‘Women’s Day’ powerfully marked the revolution where that morning, textile workers left their work in several factories and sent delegates to ask for the support of the strike… which led to mass strike… all went out into the streets.” Seven days later, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.
In 1917, following the October Revolution, Bolsheviks Alexandra Kollontai and Vladimir Lenin made IWD an official holiday in the Soviet Union.
On May 8, 1965, the USSR Presidium of the Supreme Soviet decreed International Women’s Day a non-working day in the USSR, “in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defense of their Fatherland during the Great Patriotic War, in their heroism and selflessness at the front and in the rear, and also marking the great contribution of women to strengthening friendship between peoples, and the struggle for peace. But still, women’s day must be celebrated as are other holidays.”
After its official adoption in Soviet Russia, IWD was predominantly celebrated in communist countries and by the communist movement worldwide. Communist leader Dolores Ibárruri led a women’s march in Madrid in 1936 on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.
Chinese Communists observed IWD
Chinese communists observed the holiday beginning in 1922, and soon touched the political spectrum where in1927, Guangzhou saw a march of 25,000 women and male supporters, including representatives of the Kuomintang, the YWCA, and labor organizations.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, the State Council proclaimed on December 23 that March 8 would be made an official holiday, with women given a half-day off.
Adoption by United Nations
IWD remained predominantly a communist holiday until roughly 1967 when it was taken up by second-wave feminists. The day re-emerged as a day of activism, and is sometimes known in Europe as the “Women’s International Day of Struggle”. In the 1970s and 1980s, women’s groups were joined by leftists and labor organizations in calling for equal pay, equal economic opportunity, equal legal rights, reproductive rights, subsidized child care, and the prevention of violence against women.
The United Nations began celebrating International Women’s Day in 1975, which had been proclaimed the International Women’s Year. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as an official UN holiday for women’s rights and world peace. It has since been commemorated annually by the UN and much of the world, with each year’s observance centered on a particular theme or issue within women’s rights.
Criticism and Violence
International Women’s Day came under attack in Tehran, Iran on March 4, 2007, when police beat hundreds of men and women who were planning a rally. (A previous rally for the occasion was held in Tehran in 2003.)
Police arrested dozens of women and some were released after several days of solitary confinement and interrogation. Shadi Sadr, Mahbubeh Abbasgholizadeh, and several more community activists were released on March 19, 2007, ending a fifteen-day hunger strike.
By the twenty-first century, IWD has been condemned as heavily diluted and commercialized, particularly in the West, where it is sponsored by major corporations and used to promote general and vague notions of equality, rather than radical social reforms.
The website internationalwomensday.com was established in 2001; it sets out a yearly theme and hashtags, unconnected with the UN project.
In 2009, the website was being managed by the British marketing firm Aurora Ventures with corporate sponsorship.
The website began to promote hashtags as themes for the day, which became used internationally. The day was commemorated by business breakfasts and social media communications that were deemed by some social critics as reminiscent of Mother’s Day greetings.
The Hope of Indians Celebrating International Women’s Day
Why Does India Celebrate This Day?
India celebrates national women’s day on February 13 to commemorate the birth anniversary of Sarojini Naidu. The aim of the day is to spread the message of gender equality and promote a better society where there is no gender bias.
Indians who celebrate this day carry glowing candles of hopes in their hearts with a desire to build up a new society in India without gender inequalities, no favoritism of the boy child over the female, stop the suppression of women, curb brutality, stop rapes, dowry deaths, honor killings, witchcraft-related murders, female infanticide, and sex-selective abortion, insults to modesty, human trafficking, and forced prostitution and it is the goal of these Indians to transform the nation to build dignity, honor, and equality for women.
Rita
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