translated from Spanish: What is the origin of the women’s day

on 8 March is a date highlighted in many parts of the world.
Commemorating the international women’s day, formalized by the United Nations in 1975.
This special day, in the words of the UN, “refers to ordinary women as architect of the story and is rooted in the centuries struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men.”
Despite having become a global Conference on equality, many people still wonder what is its origin and what led to that March 8 obtained this international recognition.
To explain it, must look back: to the protests that led to a revolution. In late 19th century and early 20th.
“The women and men are created equal” the international women’s day has its roots in the labor movement of the mid-nineteenth century, at a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world, in which women began to speak more and more.
The life of women in the West at that time was one continues history of limitations: no right to vote, or to manage their own accounts, or training and with a life expectancy far less than male births and child abuse.
An example of this growing concern and debate among women is in 1848, when the Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott gather hundreds of people at the first National Convention for the rights of women, in the United States.
Both maintained that “all men and women are created equal” and demanded civil, social, political and religious rights for the collective.
Then, they received taunts, especially with regard to the right of women to vote, but they put a seed that in the following years was growing, highlights the UN in a special about the activism of women over the years.
Getty ImagesEn 1913, women were already protesting for the right to vote in United States. At that time, were frequent protests also to ask for better working conditions. In this context, historians coincide in highlighting as a direct prelude to the international women’s Day March of women who lived in New York in 1908, when some 15,000 marched to demand reduced hours of work, wages and right to vote .
A year after that, the Socialist Party of America declares the national women’s day, celebrated for the first time in the U.S. on February 28.
In this context, bursts onto scene a woman who would go down in history as the driving force behind the international women’s day: the German Communist, Clara Zetkin.
Zetkin suggested the idea to commemorate a day of women globally in 1910 at the International Conference of the working women in Copenhagen (Denmark).
His proposal was heard by 100 women from 17 countries and approved unanimously, although without agreeing a date specific.
Domain Publicoclara (left) Zetkin and Rosa of Luxemburgo, another of the leading revolutionary of the twentieth century. A year later, held the first international women’s day, March 19, 1911, gathering more than one million people in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland.
In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, was then demanded the right to work of women, to vocational training and employment non-discrimination.
However, in the beginning, “the commemoration (also) serves as a protest against the World War I”, recalls UN.
And there lies one of the keys to why the date of March 8 ended up choosing.
Russia and the I war world there are different versions that is why they chose this date in particular.
But the UN highlights the importance of the events that lived in Russia, in the midst of the protests against the great war.
“In the framework of peace movements that emerged on the eve of the first world war, the Russian women held its first international women’s day the last Sunday in February 1913. In the rest of Europe, women held rallies around 8 March of the following year to protest the war or to show solidarity with other women”, recalls the Agency.
In 1917, and as a reaction to the millions of dead Russian soldiers, the women of that country again take to the streets on the last Sunday of February, under the slogan “bread and peace”.
Getty ImagesEn 1917 in Russia, thousands of women took to the streets against the war, a protest that led to the revolution and marked the date of the international day of the Mujer.Se trafficking in a strike which continues for several days and just forcing the exit of the Tsar.
“The metallurgical workers joined their protest (of women) while the Bolsheviks saw the mobilization of women as hasty. “On February 25, two days after the start of the insurrection of the women on the international women’s day, the Tsar ordered (…) shoot if necessary to put an end to the revolution of women”, explains American historian Temma Kaplan, in “On the” Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day “(“Sobre los orígenes socialistas deel Día Internacional de la Mujer”).”
Measurement of the Tsar failed and instead began “February revolution”, says Kaplan, that ended with the abdication of the Tsar Nicolás II this month of March.
The success of Russian women was consecrated soon after: the provisional Government that was formed after the withdrawal of the Tsar recognized them the right to vote.
The date in which began this strike of Russian women in the Julian calendar, then the reference in Russia, was on Sunday, February 23. That same day in the Gregorian calendar was March 8, and that is the date that takes place now.
Getty ImagesMujeres around the world are still claiming equality on a daily basis and fighting violence against women, as in this demonstration for this last reason in Mexico in 2018.En 1945, United Nations formed to promote international cooperation After the devastation of World War II and the letter of this multilateral body becomes the first international agreement that establishes the equality of gender.
Three decades later, in 1975, the UN set and celebrated for the first time the international women’s day on 8 March, coinciding with the international year of the woman.
Are there reasons to continue the fight…?
The answer it is the latest published data of the UN itself: only one in four parliamentarians are women around the world.
In 2018, only 9.8% of countries in the world had female heads of State or Government.
One in three women suffers violence throughout his life.
830 women die each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy.
And the wage gap if not offset the current trend will not close until 2086.
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Original source in Spanish