and here it is (in short):
1908
15000 women marched in New York protesting for just 3 things:
shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote.
1909 (the decider)
Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) proposed the idea of an International day, that only celebrates women, to a conference (held in Copenhagen) with 100 women from 17 different countries all representing different parties, clubs and unions. The unanimous response to Zetkin's proposal was was turned into an action and thus the day to celebrate being a women was created.
1911
On the 19th of March the first International Woman's day was celebrated in Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. More than a million men and women rallied to campaign for women's rights, however a week later on the 25th of March the 'Triangle Fire' occurred in New York City killing 140 working women who were mostly Italian and Jewish immigrants.
1913-1914
Pre World War 1 Russian Women celebrated their first IWD on the last Sunday of February.
1917-1996
During these years many protests were held for womens rights but in 1917, even though they were "opposed by political leaders, women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote". The last strike was on the 23rd of February 1917 in Russia who used the Julian calendar so on the Gregorian calendar it was March 8th.
2000
by the year 2000 peoples passion for fighting for Women's rights had died down and feminism became an uncultured and unpopular word. IWD had no fire left in it and battles were yet to be won and there were still rights for women that were yet to be addressed.
2016
To modern day some still refrain from referring to themselves as feminists whether we are men or women, black or white, immigrant or not. It is as if feminism has become an unpopular topic, something we subside to talk about because it is awkward or could offend someone. I don't know another fifteen year old who clearly states she/he is a feminist, should we be able to this young? Or are we so uneducated about our own beliefs that it isn't a matter if we are or if we aren't a feminist it is that we can't say if we or aren't because we don't know what it is to be feminist or not to be a feminist. There are still wars to fight and rights to win and yet here we are on our facebook looking at the tab that says IWD and not even knowing why it is there or better yet reading the comments that say "I bet there isn't even an International Men's day" or "Why don't Men get a day". Does the hypocrisy of it all get in the way of some simple typing into google, to find that International Men's Day (IMD) is November 19th, ... I think not!
The word feminist means to fight for equality for men and women. We call it feminism because women were/are the oppressed gender, feminism for so long has become a word to mean Man hate but the true belief has to come with unconditional love for men and women equally and to be given the same rights. So this year and the next and so on I hope that after reading this people can see the history behind our International Day for Women, celebrate it to Beyonce songs and feel empowered by the days both for men and women.
Equality has no limit
