What is International Women’s Day and Why It is celebrated?

For over a century, women’s day has been being celebrated around the world to rejoice the achievements and plight of women but it still appears as if the world still needs several years to entirely bridge this gap that has existed from time immemorial.

When was the International Women’s day first observed?

There were a handful of socialists who came forward with the idea to celebrate a day to mark the contribution of woman to the society. It was a German socialist Zetkin who organized “International women’s day” as an annual celebration and he was supported by around 100 delegates from 17 countries in the month of March in1911. Over one million people in Denmark, Germany, Austria and Switzerland marked this day with various demonstrations carried across the Empire of Austro-Hungarian.

What Encouraged the Setting Up of international Woman’s Day?

With the first International women’s day celebration women across the globe started demanding equal right for them and consequently in Britain women were granted the right to vote in 1918. Nevertheless, there are still countries like Saudi Arabia where women were granted the right to vote as early as 2016.

Even after so many long years, only one fifth of the parliamentary seats are occupied by women and there are only 19 heads of the state in the total of 196 seats which is only seven women more than heads 20 eyras ago, which still needs much work to be done for the empowerment of women.

The count of cabinet ministers though increased between 1994 and 2014, it still needs is low as compared to men. It has been estimat6ed that it is going to take another 118 years to bridge this gap completely.

Focus of This year’s International Women’s day

The celebration revolved around the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development which followed from an event hosted by the People’s Republic of China and Un Women which is committed to the empowerment of women. The new agenda is designed to fulfil the millennium development Goals.

The day is celebrated to appreciate the effort of women throughout the history. In few countries the day is observed as a national holiday and women are given presents and gifts.

Why it is important to celebrate International women’s day?

Besides, the motivation to celebrate women’s day because of the disproportionate in the political offices and the pay gap there are various types of suffering women throughout the world. It has been found from the statistical data that around 120 million girls under the age of 20 have been forced into sexual intercourse and other types of sexual acts. And apart from that there have been cases of such activities that go unreported. There are abuses inflicted on women by relatives and partner that go unreported and in countries like Britain the penalty for brutal charges like rape is very low.

And there are many more unwanted issues related to the sufferings of women which need to be removed from the society. And so it becomes essential to observe women’s day to create awareness.

The UN and the International Women’s day!

The various Secretary-Generals of the UN till now have all been personal campaign for the promotion of bridging this wide gap between men and women in the society and ensure to talk about the cause and the ways it can be eradicated.

The dirt has been there for long and so our journey to wash-off this dirt called gender parity may take longer time than estimated but we as citizens should make sure not to take back our steps, ones we have stepped out of the dark and gloomy cave that has made women to feel like victims when they can prove to be preachers and healers for an assortment of victims!