International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day!

This is a day to celebrate women's fight for equality and liberation. This day's roots can be traced back to February 28, 1909. This was the day of a "Woman's Day", which was organized by the Socialist Party of America under the suggestion of activist Theresa Malkiel. On March 1911, the first International Women's Day was marked in certain countries in Europe (Austria-Hungary, Denmark, Switzerland) by over a million people. Initially, this day had no set date, generally celebrated in late February or early March. It would spread over the world since then, with Russia starting to celebrate this day in 1913, and Germany following in 1914, Australia in 1928. 

International Women's Day was mainly associated with socialist and communist movements in those early years. In the USA of the 1960s, the day would also be embraced by the second wave of the feminist movement. At that point, it had become an obscure holiday, until the activist Laura X organized an International Women's Day march in 1969. She also called for an entire month to celebrate women. 

The United Nations started celebrating this day in 1975, proclaiming it the International Women's Year. And since then, this day has seen many protests and marches in favor of women's rights. After all, we still got a ways to go. If you want to learn more about this day, you can do so here and here. Thanks for reading this blog entry! If you liked it, show it off! Take care of yourselves and each other! See you next time!