HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

Socialist roots. It’s tough to pin down exactly when IWD was born, but a key date is 1908. That’s when 15,000 women took to the streets of New York City demanding suffrage and better employment rights. After that fateful march, the Socialist Party of America embraced their cause and a year later, a congress of women from 17 countries agreed to a proposal by German social democrat Clara Zetkin to make IWD official. IWD is an official holiday from Afghanistan to Cambodia, and Vietnam to Zambia, but not in the United States.

It’s going global again. The movement’s gaining global currency again these days — just look at last year’s International Women’s Strike, during which women from more than 50 countries went on strike from work. Part of the goal, organizers said, was to “boycott local misogynists” in their communities. Women are also making strides in many traditionally macho professions and cultures, from the growing number of female sommeliers in Argentina to the female driving instructors who are opening roads for women in Egypt.

Still, many voices remain unheard. While women’s strikes and rallies can be effective protest tools, some argue that they miss the point … and a great deal of women. Many rallies have been mostly populated by privileged women because most others — like those who account for two-thirds of the U.S minimum wage workforce — simply can’t afford to hit the streets and give up a day’s pay. Some companies will be heard on IWD: For instance, McDonald’s will have special packaging, hats and crew shirts at 100 locations across the United States.

And women are still pressed for progress. Women’s rights are being “reduced, restricted and reversed,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres observed in 2017. And according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2017), the global gender gap is actually widening for the first time in a decade. Such a regression, the report argues, puts women on pace to achieve 50-50 gender parity in 217 years.

WHAT TO READ

This Is the Way to Truly Celebrate Women, by Asma I. Abdulmalik in Arab News
"I firmly believe every day will be women’s day when we stop celebrating it once a year, just like we do not dedicate a day to celebrate men’s achievements."

We Need a Feminism for the 99 Percent, in The Guardian
"Public silence about something we have always known, endured and fought back against, does not exist simply because we are afraid or ashamed to speak up: the silence is enforced."

WHAT TO WATCH