Today, March 8th, marks International Women’s Day around the world, celebrating half the planet’s population, even as many continue to face discrimination, violence and abuse. Some women are using the day to speak back to corporate cooptation of the holiday on social media by posting about pay gaps at places that pay men more than women. Women and their allies are also gathering in person for events big and small. Millions are demonstrating in Spain, which on Tuesday passed a new gender equality mandate for large companies, civil service and government institutions. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, women marched despite threats by conservative groups to stop them by force. And neighboring Afghanistan is now the world’s most repressive country for women, according to the United Nations. We’ll talk about that later in the show. We’ll also talk about the women-led protests in Iran and calls to address the abortion ban crisis in El Salvador and other countries.
And, yes, International Women’s Day has a very long progressive history that’s often not well known. And we have been celebrating it now for over 11 years at the School of Public Health with the Women, Gender, and Health concentration to bring that history back to life so that people can make the connections.
So, the very first International — National Women’s Day that took place, actually, in 1909 in the U.S., it was on the last Sunday in February, and it was organized by American socialists tied to the labor organizing that was going on at that time and also the push for women’s suffrage. One year later, Clara Zetkin made a proposal for an International Women’s Day at the second-ever International Conference of Socialist Women, which was held in Copenhagen. And they made good on that promise in
— source democracynow.org | Mar 08, 2023