Today we celebrate the past, the present and the future of all the world’s women. The purpose of the celebration has shifted over time – from reinstating equality in a man’s world, to the salutation of spring, the honouring of female beauty, or just celebrating female sincerity, wisdom, and vulnerability notwithstanding her age or status.
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What you may not know is that the tradition began March 8th 1857, when women from textile and shoemaking factories marched on the streets of New York demanding equal pay and working hours with their male counterparts. The otherwise peaceful protest was accompanied by the deafening sound of banging pots and pans, in what became known as “The Empty Pot-and-Pan March.” A women-only trade union was set up two months later.
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In 1910 during Copenhagen’s Second International Conference of Working Women, Clara Zetkin, a prominent German socialist proposed the idea of an annual celebration falling on March 8th in honour of defending women’s rights.
In Eastern Europe, following the October Revolution, the Bolshevik feminist Alexandra Kollontai suggested Lenin make it an official holiday. Although widely commemorated throughout the 1920s and 1930s it wasn’t until the rise of the feminist movement in the 1960s that the celebration gathered its significance in the newly emerged socialist states. In USSR in 1965 the International Women’s Day was established as a national holiday. In 1975 it was officially recognised by the United Nations.
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Today, International Women’s Day is an official state holiday in 30 countries around the world. In the countries that previously belonged to the socialist bloc the custom of giving flowers and gifts is as strong as ever. Men plan for the day well in advance – they take over the chores and shower their women with gifts. From dusk till dawn the mothers, wives, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, co-workers, teachers and neighbours receive small tokens of appreciation and celebrate their womanhood.
Whatever the gift – a bouquet of fresh flowers, a handwritten message or a diamond pendant – today, and every other day, she is worth it.
