March 8: International Women's Day

Gender equality remains the greatest human rights challenge. Investing in women is a human rights imperative and a cornerstone for building inclusive societies.

 

Why is International Women's Day celebrated on March 8?

Historical movements

"International Women's Day has its origins in the demonstrations of women who demanded the right to vote, better working conditions and equality between the sexes at the beginning of the 20th century," explains the United Nations (UN) on its page dedicated to this date .

International Women's Day has its roots in the historic women's movements, mainly in the United States and Europe, which demanded social justice and equality with men in various fields of society.

Although the movements became much more prominent in the 20th century, women's efforts to live in a more equal world have been around for a long time.

The women's movement in the United States dates back to 1848. Outraged by the ban on women speaking at an anti-slavery convention, Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott gather hundreds of people at the first national women's rights convention in New York.

Decades after this event, the first National Women's Day was commemorated in the United States on February 28, 1909, in honor of the 1908 women's strike against poor working conditions.

In 1910, the Second International Conference of Socialist Women was held in Copenhagen.

Hundreds of women from 17 countries participated in the conference and decided to organize an annual women's day with the aim of reinforcing their struggle to obtain universal women's suffrage.

The connection with March 8 is in the calendars: in Russia, the Julian calendar was used and in Europe the Gregorian calendar. Sunday, February 23, 1917, the day of the historic women's demonstration, was measured under the Julian calendar; that same date, but in the Gregorian calendar, was March 8 (which is why in 1913 European women went out to protest around that day).

And little by little the date gained followers until it was widely recognized and from these years onwards, International Women's Day took on a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries. The growing international women's movement is helping to make the commemoration a unifying element, strengthening support for women's rights and their participation in the political, social, cultural and economic spheres.

What is the theme of International Women's Day in 2024?

Each year, there are effectively two different themes: one proposed as a campaign theme by the International Women's Day website, which this year is #InspireInclusion , and the official UN theme, which this year is "Investing in Women: Accelerating Progress ."

UN Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs jointly publish an annual update on progress towards SDG5.

The World Economic Forum's latest report - Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: A Gender Snapshot 2023 - reveals an "alarming" annual shortfall of USD 360 billion in spending on gender equality measures.

What is the state of gender inequality in the world?

The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index 2023 found that while the global parity score has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, "the overall pace of change has slowed significantly."

The index assesses 146 countries across four key dimensions – economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment – ​​and tracks progress toward closing gender gaps over time.

Of the four gaps analysed, the gap in political training remains the largest, at just 22.1%, an increase of 0.1 percentage points compared to 2022.