International Women's Day

Enter your search terms Submit search form

Web www.whichday.com

International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global celebration of the achievements of women on 8th March each year. It is a national holiday in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York, USA in protest at the conditions under which they lived and worked, demanding shorter working hours, higher pay and the right to vote. The following year, 28 February was observed across the whole of the US as National Women's Day.

In 1910, at a Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen, International Women's Day was unanimously voted into being, although no fixed date was set. IWD was celebrated on 19 March the following year in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. Less than a week later, the death of more than 140 working women in a workplace fire in New York drew the attention of the wider world to the issue. In 1913, Russia observed IWD on the last Sunday in February, and in 1917 on the same day (23 February Julian, which corresponds to 8 March in the Gregorian calendar) began a strike which led directly to the abdication of the Czar four days later.

Since that day, IWD has gone from strength to strength, being celebrated in both developed and developing nations across the world, and is an occasion when men buy small gifts or flowers for their mothers, wives, girlfriends and colleagues. In some countries, children also buy presents for their mothers or grandmothers.

Thousands of events take place on 8 March around the world to celebrate the achievements and the emancipation of women, including leadership development sessions, career workshops and corporate citizenship events across most of the developed world.

See also National Women's Day.