Women’s Day events highlight gaps in gender equality
EDITOR’S NOTE: International Working Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 to commemorate an 1857 demonstration in New York by female garment and textile workers. It is believed that March 8 was first designated as Women’s Day in Helsinki, Finland, at an international conference of women in 1910. It is celebrated by many nations, including former socialist and current socialist republics. In Russia, it is custom to present female loved ones with flowers and gifts.
From demands for constitutional rights in Islamabad to calls for economic parity in Manila, Paris and Madrid, International Women’s Day demonstrations in cities around the world Wednesday highlighted the unfinished work of providing equity for half of the planet’s population.
While activists in some places celebrated political and legal advances, observances also pointed to repression in countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, and the large numbers of women and girls who experience sexual assaults and domestic violence globally.