International Women's Day

A day marking women's rights and achievements, International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries on March 8th. It began almost a hundred years ago as an annual call to action by suffrage and labor activists, was then formalized by United Nations representatives, and is now observed around the world.

The idea of having an international celebration was first conceived about the beginning of the 20th century, when rapid world industrialization led to many worker protests. The first national Women's Day was celebrated on February 28, 1909, by members of the U.S. Socialist Party, in memory of the 1908 garment workers' strike in New York in which women protested the common dangerous working conditions later made infamous by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (1911).

In 1910, the Socialist International proclaimed a Women's Day during its annual meeting. It called for a day to honor the women's movement and to build support for universal women's suffrage. As a result of this proclamation, International Women's Day was celebrated on March 19, 1911, with rallies in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Activists decried discrimination against women and demanded the right to vote, work, hold office, and get vocational training.

[Page 467]With World War I raging in Europe, International Women's Day also became a time to demand peace. In 1913 and 1914, women in Europe held rallies in early March to protest the war to express solidarity with other activists.

In 1917, an International Women's Day protest was part of the final push of the Russian Revolution. Russian women chose the last Sunday in February (March 8 in the Gregorian calendar) to strike for “Bread and Peace” in St. Petersburg. The strike merged with riots in the city, now known as the February Revolution. The czar abdicated just 4 days later, and the provisional government granted women's suffrage. The first Soviet government marked March 8 as an official Communist holiday to recognize “the heroic woman worker” and the day continues to be celebrated as a national holiday in Russia.

By the 1930s, International Women's Day had dwindled in the United States, but it continued to be observed in Socialist nations on March 8. The celebration was revived in the United States and other countries in the 1960s, with the flourishing of second-wave feminism. Feminists seized the opportunity to recognize women's advances and to rally people to support women's rights. Women began to observe the day in countries where it had not been celebrated before.

Soon after designating the year 1975 “International Women's Year,” the United Nations adopted March 8 as International Women's Day. The General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming that a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace should be observed each year on any day chosen by member states. In 1981, the U.S. Congress recognized the week of March 8 as National Women's History Week; this was enlarged to the entire month of March in 1987.