International Women's Day

After the Women's Marches of the Winter of 2017, International Women's Day of March 8 with the theme Be Bold For Change seemed very appropriate.  Women around the world joined together in a united voice to advocate for change for half the world's population.  In the United States this year a movement to not work on March 8 and wear red was spearheaded as a Day Without Women to protest political and economic inequality.  These protests spread throughout the world with demonstrations on almost every continent. 

A demonstration in Seoul, South Korea, against gender inequality in the workplace. Credit Jean Chung/Getty Images

The fascinating element of early 2017 and united protests is that they replicate the original inspirational events that led to International Women's Day in the first place.  According to the United Nation's page on the History of the Day, 1909 saw the first National Women's Day in the U.S. organized by the Socialist Party of America as a garment worker's strike.  Then in 1911 Austria, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland organized more than a million to demand women's right to work and a political voice behind the leadership of Socialist International.  March 8 first took significance as part of the socialist revolution in Russian in 1917 when on this day women protested for bread and peace, which led to the fall of the Tsarists regime.  Then in 1975 the United Nation's officially recognized International Women's Day and set it for March 8th.