March 8 is celebrated as International Women’s Day. Before the UN adopted it in 1977, the day was mostly celebrated in socialist and Communist countries. The day is also an opportunity to promote gender parity.
The day brings together global governments, women’s organisations, businesses, and charities together under the banner of International Women’s Day. The day itself will be marked with talks, performances, rallies, networking events and marches.
The UN celebrates the day on the basis of different themes. This year, the theme is #PressforProgress.
The website argues: “We can’t be complacent. Now, more than ever, there’s a strong call-to-action to press forward and progress gender parity.
“A strong call to #PressforProgress. A strong call to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and whole communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.”
Themes play an important role in the celebration of the day. It widens the context of women and their rights across the world and highlights the atrocities women face and the need to end them. For instance, in 2010, the International Women’s Day the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) brought to the world’s attention, the physical and mental hardships displaced women endure, as a result of armed conflicts and humanitarian crisis. In 2011, former US president Barack Obama declared the month of March as Women’s History Month. However, in 2011, there were people in Egypt’s Tahrir Square who reportedly came out to harass women who had come to stand up for their rights on the occasion.
In 2012, the UN theme for International Women’s Day 2012 was Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.
In 2013, the UN theme for International Women’s Day was ‘A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women’.
In 2014, it was ‘Equality for Women is Progress for All’; in 2015, ‘Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture it!’; in 2016, the theme was “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality”. And in 2017, “Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030” was the theme.
On this International Women’s Day, remember that as a woman, all life spring from you. So look at the world and smile. For without you, there would be no life.
Happy Women’s Day! You deserve to be happy today so enjoy your day to the fullest.
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