The History of International Women's Day
by Tim Symonds
International women’s Day is celebrated each year on March 8.
No-one is quite certain how it started. Some credit the New York female textile workers who demonstrated
on March 8 1857 against their low wages and bad working conditions. This date was later marked in the United
States with the first National Women’s Day in 1911.
The most famous year was 1917 when the women’s march in St Petersburg sparked the revolution which
overthrew the oppressive Russian Monarchy.
March 19 1911 saw the first European celebration when rallies and demonstrations were held in Germany,
Denmark, Switzerland and Austria to demand women’s right to vote and hold public office. Sometimes
called ‘the mother’ of the Day, Clara Zetkin was very influential in promoting it throughout Europe.
In 1889 she delivered her first speech on behalf of women in Paris, advocating women’s rights,
including women’s participation in national and international events. On International Women’s
Day in 1914 she called for women to hold antiwar demonstrations.
Britain first celebrated International Women’s Day in 1926, the year of the General Strike. March 8
became the day to express opposition to fascism up to the outbreak of World War Two.
The modern IWD developed from the new women’s liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
In 1971 5000 women demonstrated in London, demanding equal pay, equal opportunity, free 24-hour
childcare, free contraception, and abortion on demand.
tim.symonds@shevolution.com
© Tim Symonds 2001
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