International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on 8 March, commemorating women's fight for equality and liberation along with the women's rights movement. International Women's Day gives focus to issues such as gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. Spurred by the universal female suffrage movement, International Women's Day originated from labor movements in Europe and North America during the early 20th century.
The earliest version reported was a "Woman's Day" organized by the Socialist Party of America in New York City on 28 February 1909. In solidarity with them, communist activist and politician Clara Zetkin proposed the celebration of "Working Women's Day", approved at the 1910 International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, albeit with no set date; the following year saw the first demonstrations and commemorations of International Women's Day across Europe. Vladimir Lenin declared 8 March as International Women's Day in 1922 to honor the women's role in the 1917 Russian Revolution; it was subsequently celebrated on that date by the socialist movement and communist countries. The holiday was promoted by the United Nations in 1977.
International Women's Day is a public holiday in several countries. The UN observes the holiday in connection with a particular issue, campaign, or theme in women's rights.
History Origins
The earliest reported Women's Day event, called "Woman's Day", was held on 28 February 1909, in New York City. It was organized by the Socialist Party of America at the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel. There have been claims that the day was commemorating a protest by women garment workers in New York on 8 March 1857, but researchers have described this as a myth.
In August 1910, an International Socialist Women's Conference was organized ahead of the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen, Denmark.Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild, "From West to East: International Women's Day, the First Decade", Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History, vol. 6 (2012): 1–24. 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. The 100 delegates, representing 17 countries, agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights, including women's suffrage.
The following year, on 19 March 1911, the first International Women's Day was marked by over a million people in Austria-Hungary, 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 initially had no set date, though it was generally celebrated in late February or early March. Americans continued to observe "Woman's Day" on the last Sunday in February, while Russia observed International Women's Day for the first time in 1913, on the last Saturday in February (albeit based on the Julian calendar, as in the Gregorian calendar, the date was 8 March). In 1914, International Women's Day was held on 8 March for the first time in Germany, possibly because that date was a Sunday. As elsewhere, Germany's observance was dedicated to women's right to vote, which German women did not win until 1918. Concurrently, there was a march in London in support of women's suffrage, during which Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested in front of Charing Cross station on her way to speak in Trafalgar Square.
The Russian Revolution and Communist countries
On 8 March 1917, in Petrograd (23 February in the Julian calendar), 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 Tsarism. This marked the beginning of the February Revolution, which alongside the October Revolution, made up the Russian Revolution. Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote, "23 February (8 March) was International Woman's Day and meetings and actions were foreseen. But we did not imagine that this 'Women's Day' would inaugurate the revolution. Revolutionary actions were foreseen but without a date. But in the morning, despite the orders to the contrary, 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.
After the Russian Revolution, Bolsheviks began to celebrate the International Women's Day on 8 March as it marked the beginning of revolutionary changes in 1917 in Russia. However, it was not officially declared as such for some time. For example, the first congress of the newly founded Communist International could only adopt a very brief "Resolution on the Role of Working Women" submitted by Alexandra Kollontai on 6 March 1919, which made no mention of 8 March or International Women's Day. The second congress convened next year couldn't even find time for it, although it began holding an "International Conference of Communist Women" (organized by a newly created "International Secretariat on Work Amongst Women") under its auspices.
It was only during the third world congress of Communist International in 1921 that an important document titled "Methods and Forms of Work Among Communist Party Women: Theses" was adopted as a result of the work of the Second International Conference of Communist Women held in parallel to this congress. The theses mentioned "organizing an annual International Working Women's Day" among the tasks of central women's department of communist parties. The date of International Women's Day was also first fixed as March 8 at this Second International Conference of Communist Women. At the final evening session, the Bulgarian delegation presented a resolution on the need to celebrate International Women's Day on a single date throughout the world. Nikolaeva, a representative of the RSFSR, proposed to set the current date (March 8) in memory of the participation of Petrograd women in the demonstrations of March 8, 1917 that led to the overthrow of the monarchy, which was approved unanimously.
After its adoption in Soviet Russia, International Women's Day was predominantly celebrated in communist countries and by the communist movement worldwide. In the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, huge Soviet-style celebrations were held annually. Chinese communists observed the holiday beginning in 1922, though it soon gained traction across the political spectrum. In 1927, 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 1 October 1949, the State Council proclaimed on 23 December that 8 March would be made an official holiday, with women given a half-day off.
Hujum (; in Turkic languages, storming or assault, from ) was a series of policies and actions taken by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, initiated by Joseph Stalin on International Women's Day in 1927, to remove all manifestations of gender inequality, especially the systems of female veiling and seclusion practiced in Central Asia.Northrop, Douglas (2001a). "Subaltern dialogues: subversion and resistance in Soviet Uzbek family law". Slavic Review. 60 (1): 115–139. doi:10.2307/2697646. JSTOR 2697646. S2CID 147540996, p. 115.The Bolsheviks and Islam, International Socialism – Issue: 110 On 8 May 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet issued a decree to make 8 March, International Women's Day, a non-working public holiday 'in honor of the outstanding achievements of the Soviet women in building communism, defending the motherland during the Great Patriotic War, their heroism and selflessness both at the front and at home, and for their great contribution to the strengthening of friendship among peoples, and to the struggle for peace'.
Other countries, 1920s to 1960s In 1928, Australia first observed International Women's Day, a rally in Sydney's Domain organized by the Militant Women's Group of the Communist Party. At that rally, held on 25 March, women rallied in support of fully paid annual holidays, equal pay for equal work, female store clerks having eight-hour days, an end to piece work, and a basic wage for those without employment. Later, the first International Women's Day marches happened in Sydney and Melbourne, in 1931. The Sydney march featured approximately sixty women leading three hundred to five hundred marchers. The Melbourne march consisted of fifty women leading one hundred and fifty marchers, with a banner in front stating, "Long Live International Women's Day". In 1938, the first major International Women's Day meeting in Perth was held; in attendance were women from the Association of University Women, Jewish Women, Mothers Union, Movement Against War and Fascism, National Council of Women, Spanish Relief Committee, Women's Christian Temperance Union, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Women's Section of Primary Producers, Women's Service Guilds, Young Labor League, and YWCA.
Communist leader Dolores Ibárruri led a women's march in Madrid in 1936 on the eve of the Spanish Civil War.
The Congress of American Women was an American women's rights organization founded in New York on International Women's Day in 1946, following the 1945 founding conference of the Women's International Democratic Federation in Paris, to which it affiliated. Its primary organizer was Elinor S. Gimbel (wife of Louis S. Gimbel, Jr., grandson of Adam Gimbel of Gimbels department store.) In 1948 the organization was attacked as a communist front organization by the House Un-American Activities Committee and was forced to register as a "subversive" organization. The organization was finally dissolved in 1950. The congress was an official US branch of the Women's International Democratic Federation, which though an antifascist organization was pro-Soviet. The organization supported progressive policies giving women full rights and equality both in the home and economically. They supported labor organizing and civil rights and were against anticommunist attacks on liberals. Though many members were communists or part of the popular front, membership in the organization included a broad mix of liberal, middle-class women.
In 1956 in Singapore, Chan Choy Siong, along with Ho Puay Choo and Oh Siew Chen, created the Women's League within the People's Action Party, and that year, to recognize International Women's Day, the League organized four rallies across Singapore, which attracted more than 2,000 people in total.
In 1958, Christina F. Lewis organized the first International Women's Day observance in Trinidad and Tobago.Hosein, Gabrielle (12 March 2014). "Our feminist legacy intact". The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. Port of Spain, Trinidad. Archived from the original on 10 February 2019. Retrieved 10 February 2019.
In 1965, Anahita Ratebzad along with other members of the Democratic Organisation of Afghan Women (DOAW) organized a protest march on 8 March in Kabul, which was the first observance of International Women's Day in Afghanistan.
Second–wave feminism