Today is International Women's Day -- a day set aside to honor the women visionaries, innovators, entrepreneurs, mentors and advocates across the world.
Marked annually on March 8th, International Women's Day (IWD) was established to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women across the globe, according to the official website. The day also calls for action to advance gender equality and fundraise for female-focused charities.
How did the day get started? IWD grew out of the labor movement of the early 1900s, when women started demanding shorter hours, better pay and the right to vote, according to the BBC.
Theresa Serber Malkiel, a Russian-born Jewish woman who in 1891 sought refuge with her family in the United States, is credited with inspiring IWD. When she arrived in New York at age 17, Malkiel started working at a garment factory. Conditions were brutal, shifts could last 18 hours, and women earned half of what men did, The Washington Post reported.
Over the next several years, Malkiel developed a passion for fighting for workers' rights. She became the first woman to rise from factory work to leadership in the Socialist Party and even founded her own labor union, according to the Jewish Women's Archive.
In 1908, Malkiel and others organized a group of 15,000 women to march through the streets of New York, demanding better pay and working conditions, and an end to sweatshops and child labor. This event made Malkiel realize that she and other activists needed a way to reach out to other working women and attain their own goals for advancing women's rights, according to the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics.
In 1909, Malkiel proposed the first National Woman's Day, which was officially declared by the Socialist Party of America and observed across the U.S. on February 28, according to the IWD website. The goal of the day was to honor the movement for women's rights and build support for the continued fight.
The idea to make the day international came from a woman named Clara Zetkin, according to the BBC. She suggested the idea in 1910 at an International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, and the first IWD was celebrated in following year in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.
In 1913, it was agreed to annually celebrate the day on March 8.
IWD was celebrated for the first time by the United Nations in 1975. Then in December 1977, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by Member States, in accordance with their historical and national traditions.
In 1996, the UN started declaring an annual theme for the day. The first theme was "Celebrating the past, Planning for the Future." This year's theme is "Break The Bias."
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