WOMEN'S DAY 2019 HISTORY AND THEME

Women's Day 2019 8 March

We celebrate international Wo men’s Day (IWD) on March 8 every year.It is a focal point in the evolution for women’s rights.

After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women’s Day on February 28, 1909 in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman’s Conference suggested a Women’s Day be held annually.

After women achieved suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then generally celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until they adopted it in 1975 by the United Nations.

Now, International Women’s Day is a public holiday in some countries and largely ignored elsewhere. In some places, it is a day of revolt; in others, it is a day that celebrates womanhood.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY HISTORY

International Women’s Day grew out of the labour movement to become a UN-recognised annual event.
The seeds of it were grown in 1908, when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter working hours, better pay and the right to vote. It was the Socialist Party of America who announced the first National Woman’s Day, a year later.


The intention to make the day international came from a woman called Clara Zetkin. She proposed the idea in 1910 at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen. There were 100 women there, from 17 countries, and they signed on her suggestion unanimously.


It was early celebrated in 1911, in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. We celebrated the centenary in 2011, so this year we’re technically celebrating the 108th International Women’s Day.
Things were made official in 1975 when the United Nations (UN) celebrated the day and setting an annual theme. The first one (in 1996) was “Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future”.


This year’s focus on ““Think equal, build smart, innovate for change” - UN figures show that only half of working-age women are performed in the labour force globally.
International Women’s Day has become a date to perform how far women have come in society, in politics and in economics, while the political roots of the day mean forces and protests are organised to raise understanding of continued inequality.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2019 THEME

THE THEME FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY (8 MARCH) THIS YEAR, “THINK EQUAL, BUILD SMART, INNOVATE FOR DEVELOPMENT”, PUTS INNOVATION BY MOTHERS AND GIRLS, FOR WOMEN AND LADIES, AT THE HEART OF EFFORTS TO ACHIEVE GENDER FAIRNESS.