Today is International Women’s Day or the Eighth of March, established as a day of struggle for women’s rights, that is, for the economic, political and social equality of women with men.
The first Women’s Day was marked in 1909 in the USA by a declaration made by the Socialist Party of America.
Among other important historical events, it also commemorates a fire in a textile factory in New York when more than 100 women died.
It is believed that the female workers were kept inside the factory to prevent them from striking with other workers. Back then, it was usually ten hours a day.
At the beginning of the First World War, women across Europe held anti-war demonstrations for peace.
The celebration of International Women’s Day in 1914 in Germany was dedicated to women’s right to vote, which was not granted to them until 1918. On March 8, 1914, a march was held in London in support of women’s right to vote.
After the Bolshevik revolution, feminist Aleksandra Kolontaj persuaded Lenin to make March 8 a national holiday, which was adopted.
In many one-party states, that holiday lost its basic idea and became an opportunity for men to show love and respect to members of the opposite sex, and it also served as a kind of amalgamation of Mother’s Day and Saint Valentine’s Day in Western countries.
