THE OFFICIAL holiday had its modest beginnings in 1908. That year, in the United States, the Socialist Party appointed a Women's National Committee to campaign for the suffrage. After meeting, this committee recommended that the Socialist Party set aside a day every year to campaign in support of women's right to vote.
On March 8, 1908, Branch No. 3 of the New York City Social Democratic Women's Society sponsored a mass meeting on women's rights. Then, in 1909, American socialists agreed to designate the last Sunday in February as National Women's Day; that year and the next.
In May 1910, at the national Congress of the Socialist Party, the Women's National Commission recommended that the last Sunday in February be recognised as International Women's Day. In Copenhagen, at the Conference of Socialist Women that August, Luise Zietz proposed internationalising the American Women's Day. The proposal was approved and a similar motion was passed unanimously a few days later at the general International Socialist Congress. This gave birth to International Women's Day.
The day had been named, but a date was never specified. Consequently, until 1917, International Women's Day was celebrated on different days throughout the world.
PROTEST
The International Women's Day protest that changed the world occurred in Russia in 1917. Coming on the heels of long struggles and many strikes, International Women's Day 1917 inspired thousands of Russian women to leave their homes and factories to protest the terrible shortages of food, the high prices, the World War, and the increased suffering they had bitterly endured. The protest inspired the last push of a revolution. A general strike spread through Petrograd, and within a week Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate.
RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
After 1917, and in honour of women's role in the Russian Revolution, International Women's Day secured its place on March 8 on socialist calendars. The date became official in 1921, when Bulgarian women attending the International Women's Secretariat of the Communist International moved a motion that the day be uniformly celebrated around the world on March 8.
In the early days of its observance, International Women's Day was celebrated as a socialist holiday honouring working women. With the resurgence of feminism in the late 1960s came a renewed interest in International Women's Day. Feminists found it a ready-made holiday for the celebration of women's lives and work and began promoting March 8 as such. These efforts resulted in the revitalised holiday in countries where it had been traditionally celebrated, and inspired new interest in a number of countries where the holiday had previously not been observed.
In 1981, the National Women's History Project, in Santa Rosa, California, spearheaded the drive for a, National Women's History Week, choosing the week of March 8 to show the international connections among women. That year the U.S. Congress passed a resolution declaring National Women's History Week. Due to popular demand, in 1987 the week was expanded to the entire month of March, National Women's History Month.
(This information came, in part, from links provided by The History Channel's website).
