Today, March 8, is International Women's Day

[Better Believe It]

International Women’s Day

Like May Day, IWD has roots in the USA but is today celebrated mainly in other lands. The first Women's Day was organized in 1908 by American socialist women fighting for the right to vote and promoting organization of workers through the Women's Trade Union League. Fifteen thousand marched that day through the streets of New York. The following year they organized another mass demonstration in New York in preparation for a major garment worker strike. Their actions inspired a 1910 Women's Conference of the Socialist International to proclaim a coordinated annual International Women's Day on March 8, beginning in 1911–and it continues now in many countries more than a century later.

http://www.kclabor.org/wir352012.htm

The first national Women's Day was observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America.[2] In August 1910, an International Women's Conference was organized to precede the general meeting of the Socialist Second International in Copenhagen. Inspired in part by the American socialists, German Socialist Luise Zietz proposed the establishment of an annual 'International Woman's Day' (singular) and was seconded by Clara Zetkin, although no date was specified at that conference.[3] Delegates (100 women from 17 countries) agreed with the idea as a strategy to promote equal rights, including suffrage, for women.[4] The following year, on 18 March, 1911, IWD was marked for the first time, by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations.[3] In Vienna, women paraded on the Ringstrasse and carried banners honouring the martyrs of the Paris Commune.[3] Women demanded that women be given the right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against employment sex discrimination.[2] Americans continued to celebrate National Women's Day on the last Sunday in February.[3]

In 1913 Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February (by Julian calendar then used in Russia). In 1917 demonstrations marking International Women's Day in St.Petersburg on the last Sunday in February (which fell on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar) initiated the February Revolution.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day

I haven't been able to visit InternationalWomen'sDay.com probably due to heavy traffic. But, maybe other DU'ers can reach that website in order to find out more about the theme and events scheduled for today. BBI

[DesertRat]

1. In honor of Women's Day