International Women's Day
International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8.
March 8 marks International Women's Day, an occasion to demand rights and draw attention to gender inequalities. From DentalOffice.org, we join this fight, emphasizing the need to ensure that all women have equal access to health resources and, in particular, to ensure optimal oral health.
International Women's Day, originally called International Working Women's Day, commemorates women's struggle for their participation in society, their emancipation, and their full development as individuals. It is celebrated on March 8 and is a national holiday in some countries. It was institutionalized by the United Nations in 1975 as International Women's Day.
The first commemoration was held on March 19, 1911, in Europe, more specifically in Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Switzerland; since then, it has spread to other countries and continents. In 1972, the United Nations General Assembly declared 1975 as International Women's Year, and in 1977 invited States to say, by their historical traditions and national customs, a day as International Women's Rights and International Peace Day.
In the shadow of COVID-19
This year's event is being held under the theme "Women Leaders: For an Equal Future in the World of Covid-19" to highlight the tremendous efforts of women and girls around the world to forge a more equal future and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. to highlight the enormous efforts of women and girls around the world to develop a more equal lot and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Women are on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis as health care workers, caregivers, innovators, and community organizers. They are also among the most exemplary and effective national leaders in the fight against the pandemic. The crisis has highlighted both the critical importance of women's contributions and the disproportionate burdens they bear.
Why March 8?
The day was first celebrated on March 8, 1911. After the year before, Copenhagen hosted the 2nd International Conference of Socialist Women, which was attended by more than 100 women from 17 countries. The aim of this conference was to promote equal rights for women, and it was there that it was proposed and approved that Working Women's Day is celebrated on March 8, at the request of Clara Zetkin, a prominent German activist.
The first of these was carried out by women workers in a textile factory in New York. At that time, the majority of employees in the sector were women, who worked more than 12 hours a day at meager wages, with a large wage gap. The exhausting working hours and these terrible working conditions led the women to organize a strike and a march through the city to demand their rights, although they were met with heavy police repression.
In 1908 another revolt took place in the United States. In this case, 40,000 seamstresses from many large factories in the country went on strike to demand equal rights, among other demands. Unfortunately, a tragedy occurred in one of them, the Cotton Textile Factory in Washington Square. The owners of this company closed the doors of the factories where the women were located; a fire inside the building caused the death of 120 workers.
This date was chosen to commemorate two strikes by women workers, both of which are tentatively considered to have occurred on March 8. They appeared in 1857 and 1908.
