The World Women’s Day, celebrated every year on 8 March, is an important reminder of the struggles, achievements and challenges that women around the world continue to face.

It is not just a day of celebration, but more importantly a day to remember, recognize and claim equal rights.

This day has its roots in women’s social and labour struggles at the beginning of the 20th century, when thousands of women demanded better working conditions, the right to vote and equal treatment. Significant strides have been made since then, but the march towards full equality is still a work in progress.

Women play a key role in every aspect of society: in the family, at work, in science, in politics, in culture and in the economy. With their strength, perseverance and talent, they contribute every day to progress and the shaping of a better future.

At the same time, World Women’s Day is a reminder that in many parts of the world women continue to face inequality, discrimination and violence. The elimination of these phenomena is the responsibility of the entire society and requires constant effort, awareness and action.

March 8 is therefore a day dedicated to all women: to those who paved the way with their struggles, but also to those who continue to fight for a more just world, with equal opportunities and respect for all. It is a reminder that equality is not only a right, but also a foundation for a more progressive and humane society.

World Women’s Day: The Historical Journey

International Women’s Day is celebrated every year on 8 March. It was first established in 1977 by a resolution of the UN General Assembly.

Despite the great strides made in recent years, women’s equality with men is an unrealized dream not only in the immediate but also in the distant future. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced, on 6 March 2023, that “equality” between men and women worldwide is an increasingly distant goal, which will be achieved at best “in 300 years”. “Gender equality is moving further and further away. At the current pace the UN agency for women (UNIFEM Development Fund for Women) predicts that it will be achieved in 300 years,” Guterres said in a speech at the opening of discussions in New York of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The historical journey

The historical trajectory of International Women’s Day does not begin with its adoption by the UN in 1977. It was first celebrated on February 28, 1909 in New York City as National Women’s Day, initiated by the Socialist Party of the United States, in commemoration of a major protest event held on March 8, 1857 by female textile workers in New York City who were demanding better working conditions. This incident is now disputed by some American historians and is described as a myth.

Starting in the United States, the celebration was internationalized the following year, during a second congress of the women’s section of the Socialist International (2nd International), held in Copenhagen (26-27 August 1910). The 100 delegates from 17 countries adopted the proposal of three German women (Louise Cheech, Clara Chetkin and Kette Dunker) to celebrate International Women’s Day every year as a step towards promoting gender equality, including the right to vote, which was then the universal demand for women all over the world.

On 19 March 1911, International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. Common ground in all four countries was the vote for women and the elevation of women to public office. American women continued to celebrate their own national day on the last Sunday in February. In 1914, International Women’s Day was celebrated in Germany on March 8 – either because it was a Sunday or in commemoration of the 1857 strike in New York – and this date has since been established for the celebration and was adopted several years later by the United Nations.

After the October Revolution in Russia (1917), the feminist Alexandra Kolodai persuaded Lenin to establish March 8 as an official holiday. A women-only holiday was established in China after the communist rule of Mao Tse-tung. Soon, however, International Women’s Day lost its political and assertive background and is celebrated as an expression of men’s sympathy and love for women, with the offering of flowers and gifts.

The rise of the feminist movement in the West in the 1960s revived International Women’s Day, which since 1977 has been held under the auspices of the UN, spearheading the promotion of women’s problems and rights.

UN: Women’s rights declined in 2024 in a quarter of countries worldwide

Women’s rights declined in 2024 in a quarter of countries worldwide, according to a report released by UN Women on the occasion of International Women’s Day, a fact to which factors including the weakening of democratic institutions, new technologies and climate change, among others, contributed.

“The weakening of democratic institutions has been accompanied by a decline in equality between men and women,” underlines the UN agency, which says “anti-rights actors are actively undermining the long-standing consensus on key issues on women’s rights.”

“Nearly one in four countries reported retreats in gender equality that impede the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action,” the report continues, referring to the Actors’ Agenda adopted at the UN’s 4th World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995.

Thirty years after that conference, the UN observes that mixed progress has been made. Women’s representation in parliaments has more than doubled since 1995, but three-quarters of MPs are still male.

The proportion of women receiving social protection increased globally by a third between 2010 and 2023, but two billion women and girls still live in areas where no such protection exists. Moreover, labour disparities “have been in a quagmire for decades”. Some 63% of women aged 25 to 54 are in a paid occupation, compared to 92% of men in the same age group.

The covid-19 pandemic, conflict, climate change and new technologies are potential new threats, the report revealed.According to UN Women data, conflict-related sexual violence has increased by 50% in ten years, with 95% of victims being children or young women. Also, 612 million women lived less than 50 kilometres from an armed conflict in 2023, a 54% increase from 2010.

In 12 countries in Europe and Central Asia, 53% of women have experienced at least one form of gender-based violence online. “Globally, violence against women and girls continues at alarming rates. 736 million women, or one in three, have been the victim of physical or sexual violence by their partner or sexual violence by a third party at least once in their lives,” the UN says.

The report sets out a roadmap with several pillars for the future: equal access to new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, investment to tackle poverty, fighting violence, better participation of women in public affairs and measures for climate justice.