Women's Day

Posted by Toza March 08, 2014

Women's Day

Poster in former Yugoslavia

Poster in USSR

German women asked to celebrate their day

On March 19, 1911, International Women's Day was marked for the first time by over a million people all over Europe. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire alone, there were 300 demonstrations. Women demanded right to vote and to hold public office. They also protested against gender-discrimination in employment. Americans, at the beginning of last century, celebrated National Women's Day on the last Sunday in February

"Flowers for my mom - it's your holiday", song sang by kids in former Yugoslavia

In 1917, demonstrations marking International Women's Day in Saint Petersburg on the last Sunday in February (which fell on March 8 on the Gregorian calendar) initiated the February Revolution. Women in Saint Petersburg went on strike that day, demanding the end of World War I and an end to Russian food shortages. Leon Trotsky wrote, "23 February (8th March) was International Woman’s Day and meetings and actions were foreseen. But we did not imagine that this ‘Women’s Day’ would inaugurate the revolution."

In 1965, International Women's Day was declared a non-working day in the USSR "in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women in communistic construction."

From its official adoption in Russia, the holiday was predominantly celebrated in communist and socialist countries. In 1949, the Chinese state council proclaimed March 8 an official holiday for women in China, and gave them a half-day off.

In the West, International Women's Day was first observed as a popular event after 1977, when the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for women's rights and world peace. Although women from North America were the first to initiate having their own female holiday, North America -as this was a mostly communist celebrated holiday- didn't pay loads of attention to this day for a long time. It's also never wildly commercially popularized, as all other official holidays. That is surprising, because it would be "very good for the economy", as holidays are the most important parts of consumer society and culture in the West.

Feminism today has a completely different meaning and focus than what it was hundred years ago. For some, it went in wrong direction, and in that struggle, the women's cause lost its way. Women's place in society has changed, and the important role that they used to play in family has shifted over the decades. A society depends on its core, family and and a family's most important role: women. Kids will always need their mothers, regardless of how women's positions develop and change in society.

For all those reasons, make sure to remember your grandmas, mothers, sisters, girlfriends and wives today, for what they really are.

Celebrate this day with them, or maybe even make something for them or with them.

Here is a great repertoire of sweets that you can make:

Coconut roll