News / Invest in Women

/ 03.08.19 /

History of International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day 2019 – Balance for Better #IWD2019

What is International Women’s Day (IWD)and how did it get started?

International Women’s Day wasn’t always on March 8th. Actually it started well over a century ago in 1911, on March 19 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland where “over one million women and men rallied for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination.”* In 1913, March 8 became the official date and has remained the global date for International Women’s Day ever since.

Over the many years, the themes have included the call for better and safer working conditions, higher wages for women, campaigns against war, poor living conditions, and to demonstrate women’s solidarity across the world.

Today, International Women’s Day serves as a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. However, as we all know, there is still much more work to be done as we haven’t closed the economic and empowerment gap for ALL women. So in addition to a celebration, this day is a call to action for accelerating gender parity.

Now that you know the origins of International Women’s Day, take a minute to learn more about how Working for Women is leading a movement to increase investment with the benefit of ALL women in mind.

*Sources:
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/About
https://iwd.uchicago.edu/page/international-womens-day-history