International Women’s Day was first established at the 1910 International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen. German women’s rights activist and Marxist theorist Clara Zetkin was the one who tabled the idea.
Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark celebrated the holiday for the first time on March 19th 1911, with the Soviet Union the first to make it a public holiday in 1917. The date of 8th March was adopted internationally in 1921.
IWD was declared a national holiday in Mongolia (1957); Angola (1961); Ukraine (1965); Cuba (1966); Vietnam (1975); Mozambique (1975); Zambia (1996); and Kazakhstan (1998).
In 1977, the United Nations declared 8th March as International Women’s Day, a day each year when the world should celebrate, recognize and remember women and the accomplishments they have made to society. Each year has a theme:
The theme of International Women’s Day 2025 is ‘Accelerate Action’. Collectively, we can Accelerate Action for gender equality. At the current rate of progress, it will take 134 years, roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity in 2158, according to data from the World Economic Forum. Focusing on the need to Accelerate Action emphasises the importance of taking swift and decisive steps to achieve gender equality. It calls for increased momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic barriers and biases that women face, both in personal and professional spheres. So, together, let’s Accelerate Action and speed up the rate of progress worldwide.