WD Blog: International Women's Day and Why it Still Matters!

While any day makes for a great opportunity to celebrate the women in your life, International Women’s Day gives you one more reason to do exactly that. International Women’s Day is on March 8th, and is a global holiday that recognizes women’s incredible achievements, raises awareness, and encourages others to advocate for gender equality.

The United Nations has marked International Women’s Day since 1975 and each year the UN focuses on a different theme. In his message to mark the day in 2014, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: “Realising human rights and equality is not a dream, it is a duty of governments, the United Nations and every human being. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all.”

The seeds were planted in New York City, this holiday dates back to the early 1900s when 15,000 women flooded the streets of New York City in hopes for better working conditions, pay, and voting rights. In 1911, Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland celebrated what’s regarded as the first International Women’s Day.

Led by German campaigner and socialist Clara Zetkin, the idea to turn the day into an international movement advocating universal suffrage was established at the International Conference of Working Women in 1910. Zetkin was renowned as a passionate orator and advocate for working women’s rights, and her efforts were crucial to the day’s recognition throughout much of Europe in the early 1910s.

From then on, the first-ever National Women’s Day was established in 1909 and has continued to spread to several different countries around the world, eventually leading to the International Women's Day online portal created in 2001 — a vital resource and tool for educating and empowering all women.

in 2001, The?internationalwomensday.com?platform was launched with the specific purpose of re-energizing the day - a focus that continues to this day - celebrating and making visible the achievements of women while continuing the call for accelerating gender parity.

2011 saw the 100 year centenary of International Women's Day - with the first IWD event held exactly 100 years ago in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. In the United States, President Barack Obama proclaimed March 2011 to be "Women's History Month", calling Americans to mark IWD by reflecting on "the extraordinary accomplishments of women" in shaping the country's history.

2012 & beyond: A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities, and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatrical performances, fashion parades, and more. Many global corporations actively support IWD by running their own events and campaigns. For example, on March 8 search engine and media giant Google often changes its Google Doodle on its global search pages to honor IWD. Year on year IWD is certainly a powerful moment increasing in status.

As of September 1, 2021, there are 26 women serving as Heads of State or Government in 24 nations. Only 10 countries have female heads of state, and 13 countries have female heads of government. 21% of government ministers were women, with only 14 countries having 50% or more women in their cabinet.

During the past few years, we’ve seen progress in various programs across the globe to help advance women in a number of areas. For example, gender disparities in out-of-school children have narrowed, resulting in more girls enrolled in school. Literacy rates have increased globally, but there’s still work to be done. Progress is being made to advance gender equality through a strategy to reform discriminatory laws in six areas by 2023.

However, the progress made on advancing female participation in the workforce is experiencing a setback as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pace of progress towards gender equality will need to accelerate to recover from this setback.

Women are undoubtedly in the minority in the tech industry, from the general worker to management and leadership positions. Women make up 28.8% of the IT workforce, according to a 2020 study by the?AnitaB.org?Institute, a steady increase over the previous three years (25.9% in 2018 and 26.2% in 2019). However, at this rate, women may not achieve equal representation in technology for another ten years.

To us, it is evident therefore that we need International Women’s Day more than ever. But scrolling through social media platforms, we worry that we are in the minority.

International Women’s Day is a collective day of global celebration and a call for gender parity,’ the official IWD website states. ‘International Women’s Day is all about unity, celebration, reflection, advocacy, and action – whatever that looks like globally at a local level. But one thing is for sure, International Women’s Day has been occurring for well over a century – and continues to grow from strength to strength.’

Why do we need IWD?

- there are more than 250 million women alive today who were married before their 15th birthday, many against their will. This is a worldwide problem driven by deep-rooted patriarchal beliefs that girls only have value in roles as traditional housewives and homemakers

- 35% of women have experienced violence

- as of March 2020 89% of the world’s student population were not in school - this includes 743 million girls.

We live in a world that prioritizes men and as was announced last year, we are 100 years away from having actual gender parity. To get to that stage, we have to push women up as hard as we can and amplify their voices. This is what International Women’s Day is for.

The UN estimated that it would cost $264 billion to end the worst gender injustices: violence against women and girls, child marriage, female genital mutilation, preventable maternal deaths, and the unmet need for contraception. So far, only 16% of the required funding has been pledged. Without more funding, we cannot expect to make good progress in the fight against gender inequality. World leaders and funders must step up, and a lot more needs to be done to raise awareness of the issue across all sectors - there is no aspect of human society that would not hugely benefit from the empowerment of women and girls.

This year’s theme is #BreakTheBias which focuses on creating a world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination, and creating gender equality in workplaces, communities, schools, and more.

So what kind of impact could you create? Some suggestions from our end:

Make a difference, think globally, and act locally!

Make everyday International Women's Day.

Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe, and rewarding.

#iwd #womenshistorymonth #breakingthebias #genderequality #femaleempowerment