International Women’s Day
The YWCA of Canberra supports International Women’s Day on 8 March every year.
International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 every year across the world and provides an opportunity to recognise the achievements of women and their contribution to society. On this day, women can celebrate the progress that has been made but also contemplate those areas of women's lives where more can be done. Women's access to education, health care and paid labour has improved, and legislation that promises equal opportunities for women and respect for their human rights has been adopted in many countries.
However, nowhere in the world can women claim to have all the same rights and opportunities as men, and until we all work together to secure the rights and full potential of women, lasting solutions to social, economic and political problems are unlikely to be found.
On IWD, like any other day, women around the world will suffer as victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and discrimination. In war, women will be raped, families will be shattered and many today remain, displaced, in refugee camps.
We need to see changes that transform relationships between women and men, so women will be able to take greater financial, political and physical control of their lives.
A history of International Women's Day
IWD is today regarded by many as the story of ordinary women as makers of history, and it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate with equality in society. However, the idea of an IWD first arose at the turn of the century, which, in the industrialised world, was a period of expansion and turbulence.
IWD inherited a tradition of protest and political activism. In the years before 1910, from the turn of the 20th Century, women in industrially developing countries were entering paid work in some numbers. Their jobs were sex segregated, mainly in textiles, manufacturing and domestic services where conditions were wretched and wages worse than depressed. Trade unions were developing and industrial disputes were starting to occur.
In continental Europe, some socialists saw the demand for the women's vote as being unnecessarily divisive in the working class movement, while others successfully fought for it to be accepted as a necessary part of a socialist program.
The first IWD was held on March 19, 1911 in Germany, Austria, Denmark and other European countries. German women chose this particular day because, on that date in 1848, the Prussian king, faced with an armed uprising, had promised many reforms, including an unfulfilled one of votes for women. A million leaflets calling for action on the right to vote were distributed throughout Germany before IWD in 1911.
Since those early years, IWD has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. International Women's Day is celebrated in many countries as a national holiday, including Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother's Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.
The United Nations and Gender Equality
The Charter of the United Nations, signed in 1945, was the first international agreement to affirm the principle of equality between women and men. In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating International Women's Day on 8 March. Two years later, in December 1977, the General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions. In adopting its resolution, the General Assembly recognised the role of women in peace efforts and development and urged an end to discrimination and an increase of support for women's full and equal participation.
The YWCA of Canberra commends the Australian Government’s formal move to become party to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), ratified on 24 November 2008.