The first International Women's Day was launched in several European countries in March 1911. It was celebrated on 19 March and over a million men and women took to the streets in a series of rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work and an end to discrimination on the job.
Since 1917 the date of 8 March was universally accepted as International Women's Day. It has become an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This day is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday.
International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.
Born at a time of great social turbulence and crisis, International Women's Day inherited a tradition of protest and political activism. In the years before 1910, from the turn of the 20th century, women in industrially developing countries were entering paid work in some numbers. Their jobs were sex segregated, mainly in textiles, manufacturing and domestic services where conditions were wretched and wages worse than depressed.
International Women's Day is not celebrated in South Africa. Since 1994, Women's Day is celebrated with a public holiday on the 9th of August. On this day, South Africa remembers the role played by women in the political struggle against apartheid as well as the historic 1956 anti-pass march by thousands of South African women.
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