Then in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. International Women's Day was marked for a first time by the United Nations in 1975. This day on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere was March 8. The date the women's strike commenced was Sunday February 23 on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia. Opposed by political leaders, the women continued to strike until four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. On the last Sunday of February, Russian women began a strike for "Bread and Peace" in response to the death of over 2 million Russian soldiers in World War 1. Sylvia Pankhurst was arrested in front of Charing Cross station on her way to speak in Trafalgar Square. ![]() For example, in London in the United Kingdom there was a march from Bow to Trafalgar Square in support of women's suffrage on March 8, 1914. In 1914, further women across Europe held rallies to campaign against the war and to express women's solidarity. Following discussions, International Women's Day was agreed to be marked annually on March 8 that translated in the widely adopted Gregorian calendar from February 23 - and this day has remained the global date for International Women's Day ever since. On the eve of World War I campaigning for peace, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on February 23, the last Sunday in February. 1911 also saw women's Bread and Roses campaign. This disastrous event drew significant attention to working conditions and labor legislation in the United States that became a focus of subsequent International Women's Day events. However less than a week later on March 25, the tragic 'Triangle Fire' in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working women, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs - and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament - greeted Zetkin's suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women's Day was the result.įollowing the decision agreed at Copenhagen in Denmark in 1911, International Women's Day was honored the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. She proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day - a Women's Day - to press for their demands. A woman named Clara Zetkin (Leader of the 'Women's Office' for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the idea of an International Women's Day. In 1910 a second International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. Women continued to celebrate NWD on the last Sunday of February until 1913. In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day (NWD) was observed across the United States on February 28. Then in 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. Women's oppression and inequality was spurring women to become more vocal and active in campaigning for change. Great unrest and critical debate was occurring amongst women. International Women's Day (IWD) has been observed since the early 1900's - a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies. ![]() ![]() Karl Maria Stadler (1888 – nach 1943), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons History of International Women's Day
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |