International Women’s Day is a global holiday celebrated on March 8 to raise awareness of gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women. It’s a big day for activists and organizations in the global women’s movement to network, fundraise, and educate, and in some places, it’s simply a nice occasion to give flowers and chocolates to the important women in people’s lives.
IWD has interesting—and debated—origins. March 8 is significant in the United States as the date of the first organized strike by female workers, who marched through NYC streets to protest poor working conditions, low wages, and unequal treatment compared to their male counterparts. Fifty years later, women workers in the needle-trades marched again, protesting child labor and sweatshop conditions, and advocating for women’s right to vote. A few years later, Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland became the first countries to celebrate IWD as a national, public holiday.
Meanwhile, in Russia, socialist parties hosted the country’s first celebrations of IWD in 1913, using the day to advocate for better working conditions and equal rights for women, while also recruiting them to the growing socialist movement of the time. In 1917, Russia’s working women staged another large, coordinated strike, this time for “bread and peace”—an end to food shortages, sex discrimination, and World War I. These protests intensified and evolved into the pivotal Russian Revolution in which Lenin’s Bolsheviks brought a violent end to the Romanov dynasty and ushered in sixty years of communist reorganization of Russian politics and life.
In 1975, the United Nations declared the “International Women’s Year” and began a focus on women’s rights which is still a core mission of the organization today. The UN continues to declare the themes and host events for IWD: this year’s theme is “Accelerate Action”. Since then, IWD has taken off around the world: several African countries joined the celebration throughout the 1990s; a 2003 IWD march in Mexico City was among the largest observances in the world; and since the 20-teens celebrities like Beyoncé, Madonna, and Lady Gaga have used social media to build support for the day and the broader women’s movement.
How do such disparate countries celebrate this global holiday? Let’s take a look at a few examples…
In the United Kingdom, IWD is celebrated during a three-day Women of the World Festival featuring speakers, activists, and performers. This year’s roster includes artists like Annie Lennox and Anoushka Shankar, and prominent activists like Angela Davis. The event also hosts sister celebrations in other countries like Greece and Pakistan. Who might they be celebrating in the UK? Perhaps Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) led England to dominant global power and the country’s “Golden Age.” Or maybe Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the woman who revolutionized nursing during the Crimean War. If they’re bibliophiles like us, they may sing the praises of author Jane Austen, whose social critiques and iconic characters in novels like Pride and Prejudice and Emma continue to captivate readers today.
In Mexico, IWD takes on greater urgency than elsewhere, as women march in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey to protest the violence against women—ten women are murdered each day in Mexico, and rampant rape goes unreported and un-prosecuted by apathetic Mexican authorities. Protestors likely remember such influential Mexican women as Dolores Huerta (1930- ) who led the farm workers movement with Cesar Chavez before creating the United Farm Workers Union in 1965. Those not taking to the streets may instead be revisiting the artwork of Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), whose famed paintings depicted her literal pain from childhood polio and a horrific traffic accident, as well as the emotional pains of marriage and miscarriage with which many women can relate.
In Russia, IWD has largely lost its political meaning to become a national holiday similar to Mother’s Day in the US: Russians exchange cards, candy, and flowers; and some Russian husbands take over household chores for the day. Some observers may still think back to such influential Russian women as Catherine the Great (1729-1796) whose reign saw a Russian renaissance in art and science, and established Russia as a great power in Europe; Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), hailed as the world’s best prima ballerina and the first ballerina to tour the world with a company she founded herself; or Major Marina Rastova (1912-1943) who led the all-female bomber regiment known as the “Night Witches” on hundreds of combat missions during World War II.
Uganda celebrates IWD as a national public holiday, hosting a conference of activists, politicians, and religious- and cultural leaders to address issues like women’s health and violence against women. Women’s rights have been a focus of Ugandan politics since the adoption of the 1995 Uganda Constitution, whose Article 21 officially outlawed all discrimination by sex (what we incorrectly refer to as “gender” in the United States), as well as race, religion, disability, and class. Since then, female life expectancy has increased, while fertility and infant mortality have decreased sharply—although violence against women remains shockingly high. Many Ugandan women were instrumental in the writing of the 1995 Constitution, including Winnie Byanyima, who is now the Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. She has also worked with extensively with UNESCO, Oxfam International, and USAID to fight hunger and poverty in Africa.
The United States has never officially celebrated International Women’s Day, though President Carter declared a National Women’s History Week that has since been extended to the entire month of March. Perhaps due to the historical associations between IWD and socialist movements, or perhaps because women’s rights have never been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, IWD is celebrated by many U.S. cities but is not an official national holiday. This year, you might look up some lesser-known women in U.S. history, like Dorothea Dix (1802-1887), a nurse and journalist whose work sparked major prison and asylum reforms—she’s the reason women are no longer locked up for such “hysterical” behavior as being unmarried or disagreeing with their husband!
Wherever you are in the world on March 8, you can celebrate International Women’s Day by wearing purple, educating yourself on women’s rights, and/or giving some flowers (yellow mimosas, traditionally) to the women who inspire you and shape our world and our lives.
Additional reading:
Abolition. Feminism. Now. by Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie
Abolition. Feminism. Now. is a celebration of freedom work, a movement genealogy, a call to action, and a challenge to those who think of abolition and feminism as separate—even incompatible—political projects.
In this remarkable collaborative work, leading scholar-activists Angela Y. Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth E. Richie surface the often unrecognized genealogies of queer, anti-capitalist, internationalist, grassroots, and women-of-color-led feminist movements, struggles, and organizations that have helped to define abolition and feminism in the twenty-first century.
This path-breaking book also features illustrations documenting the work of grassroots organizers embodying abolitionist feminist practice.
Amplifying the analysis and the theories of change generated out of vibrant community-based organizing, Abolition. Feminism. Now. highlights necessary historical linkages, key internationalist learnings, and everyday practices to imagine a future where we can all thrive.
Conversations on Common Things: Or Guide to Knowledge by Dorothea Lynde Dix
Conversations On Common Things, Or Guide To With Questions is a book written by Dorothea Lynde Dix and originally published in 1828. The book is intended to serve as a guide to knowledge and covers a wide range of topics, including history, geography, science, literature, and art.
The book is a series of conversations between a teacher and her students, with each section focusing on a particular subject. The teacher asks the students questions about the topic and provides them with information and explanations to help them better understand it.
The book is written in a clear and concise style, making it accessible to readers of all ages and backgrounds. It is designed to be used as a textbook or as a reference guide for those seeking to expand their knowledge on a variety of subjects.
Overall, Conversations On Common Things, Or Guide To With Questions is a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning more about the world around them, and it remains a popular and influential work in the field of education.
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high-quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
Formidable: American Women and the Fight for Equality: 1920-2020 by Elisabeth Giffith
The Nineteenth Amendment was an incomplete victory. Black and white women fought hard for voting rights and doubled the number of eligible voters, but the amendment did not enfranchise all women, or even protect the rights of those women who could vote. A century later, women are still grappling with how to use the vote and their political power to expand civil rights, confront racial violence, improve maternal health, advance educational and employment opportunities, and secure reproductive rights.
Formidable chronicles the efforts of white and Black women to advance sometimes competing causes. Black women wanted the rights enjoyed by whites. They wanted to protect their communities from racial violence and discrimination. Theirs was not only a women’s movement. White women wanted to be equal to white men. They sought equal legal rights, political power, safeguards for working women and immigrants, and an end to confining social structures. There were also many white women who opposed any advance for any women.
In this riveting narrative, Dr. Elisabeth Griffith integrates the fight by white and Black women to achieve equality. Previously their parallel struggles for social justice have been presented separately—as white or Black topics—or covered narrowly, through only certain individuals, decades, or incidents. Formidable provides a sweeping, century-long perspective, and an expansive cast of change agents. From feminists and civil rights activists to politicians and social justice advocates, from working-class women to mothers and homemakers, from radicals and conservatives to those who were offended by feminism, threatened by social change, or convinced of white supremacy, the diversity of the women’s movement mirrors America.
After that landmark victory in 1920, suffragists had a sense of optimism, declaring, “Now we can begin!” By 2020, a new generation knew how hard the fight for incremental change was; they would have to begin again. Both engaging and outraging, Formidable will propel readers to continue their foremothers’ fights to achieve equality for all.
The Incredible Events in Women's Cell Number 3: A Novel by Kira I︠A︡rmysh
The startling, vivid debut novel by Alexei Navalny’s press secretary, follows a woman who is arrested at an anti-corruption rally in Moscow and sentenced to ten days in a special detention center, where she shares a cell with five other women from all walks of life
The Incredible Events in Women’s Cell Number 3 is the debut novel by Kira Yarmysh that follows a young woman, Anya, who is arrested at a Moscow anti-corruption rally, and, under false charges, sentenced to a ten-day stretch at a special detention center.
In a large barren room furnished only with communal bunkbeds, Anya meets her cellmates: five ordinary Russian women arrested on petty charges. They come from all strata and experiences of Russian society, and as they pass the long hours waiting to be released, they slowly build trust and companionship while sipping lukewarm tea from plastic cups and playing games. Above all, they talk: about politics, feminism, their families, their sexualities, and how to make the most of prison life. Yet as the waking days stretch listlessly before Anya, soon she is plagued by strange nightmarish visions and begins to wonder if her cellmates might not actually be as ordinary as they seem. Will the façade of everyday life ultimately crack for good?
A brilliant exploration of what it means to be marginalized both as an independent woman in general and in an increasingly intolerant Russia in particular, and a powerful prison story that renews a grand Russian tradition, The Incredible Events in Women’s Cell Number 3 introduces one of the most urgent and gripping new voices in international literature.
"I never painted my dreams, I painted my own reality." — Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo is one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. Her tragic and dramatic personal life has been the subject of numerous biographies and a major film starring Salma Hayek. In recent years, public interest in Kahlo's life has threatened to eclipse serious consideration of her artistic achievement. This beautifully produced book, which accompanies a major exhibition, presents an enlightening retrospective of her work, refocusing attention on the artistic qualities that have made her paintings some of the most iconic images of the last 100 years. Presenting major works alongside the lesser-known, and incorporating paintings, drawings, and photographs, the volume offers a thoroughly researched, accessible overview of Kahlo's career, with essays by leading critics and an extensive illustrated glossary that explores key recurring elements in her paintings.
Walking with Gorillas: The Journey of an African Wildlife Vet by Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka
In her enchanting memoir, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Uganda’s first wildlife veterinarian, tells the remarkable story from her animal-loving childhood to her career protecting endangered mountain gorillas and other wild animals. She is also the defender of people as a groundbreaking promoter of human public health and an advocate for revolutionary integrated approaches to saving our planet. In an increasingly interconnected world, animal and human health alike depend on sustainable solutions and Dr. Gladys has developed an innovative approach to conservation among the endangered Mountain Gorillas of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and their human neighbors.
Walking with Gorillas takes the reader on an incredible personal journey with Dr. Gladys, from her early days as a student in Uganda, enduring the assassination of her father during a military coup, to her veterinarian education in England to establishing the first veterinary department for the Ugandan government to founding one of the first organizations in the world that enables people to coexist with wildlife through improving the health and wellbeing of both. Her award-winning approach reduced the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on critically endangered mountain gorillas.
In the face of discrimination and a male dominated world, one woman’s passion and determination to build a brighter future for the local wildlife and human community offers inspiration and insights into what is truly possible for our planet when we come together.
Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement by Leila J. Rupp
Worlds of Women is a groundbreaking exploration of the "first wave" of the international women's movement, from its late nineteenth-century origins through the Second World War. Making extensive use of archives in the United States, England, the Netherlands, Germany, and France, Leila Rupp examines the histories and accomplishments of three major transnational women's organizations to tell the story of women's struggle to construct a feminist international collective identity. She addresses questions central to the study of women's history—how can women across the world forge bonds, sometimes even through conflict, despite their differences?—and questions central to world history—is internationalism viable and how can its history be written?
Rupp focuses on three major organizations that were technically open to all women: the broadly based and cautious International Council of Women, founded in 1888; the feminist International Alliance of Women, originally called the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, founded in 1904; and the vanguard Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, which grew out of the International Congress of Women that met at The Hague in 1915. The histories of these organizations, and their stories of cooperation and competition, shed new light on the international women's movement. They also help us to understand the different but connected story of the second wave of international feminism that emerged from the ashes of World War II.
The U.S. Women's Movement in Global Perspective by Multiple Authors
This ambitious volume brings together original essays on the U.S. women's movement with analyses of women's movements in other countries around the world. A comparative perspective and a common theme―feminism in social movement action―unite these voices in a way that will excite students and inspire further research. From the grassroots to the global, the significance of the U.S women's movement in the international arena cannot be denied. At the same time, the way in which international feminism has developed―in Asia, in Latin America, in Europe―has altered and expanded the landscape of the U.S. women's movement forever. These distinguished authors show us how.