International Women’s Day, a day on which nations everywhere in the world unite within the celebration of women’s achievements, is because of happen in simply lower than a month’s time.
The occasion on March 8 honours girls of the previous and current who’ve fought for change in gender equality and funding female-focused charities.
It additionally celebrates future generations of girls.
Underneath the brand new annual theme, organisers are inviting women and men to partake in marketing campaign efforts to boost consciousness.
Right here’s what Worldwide Ladies’s Day is about and how one can get entangled on this 12 months’s occasion.
What’s Worldwide Ladies’s Day?
Worldwide Ladies’s Day (IWD) is a worldwide day celebrating the social, financial, cultural, and political achievements of girls.
Origins in girls’s suffrage have advanced right into a day of celebration and development of girls’s rights.
How did Worldwide Ladies’s Day start?
The primary official Worldwide Ladies’s Day was in 1975, when it was recognised by the United Nations (UN).
However its origins started earlier, in 1908, when a girls’s rights march in New York Metropolis noticed 15,000 folks advocating for higher pay and voting rights.
IWD was then commemorated in america on February 28, 1909, with nations like Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland becoming a member of the event in 1911.
Clara Zetkin recommended the occasion be taken world on the Worldwide Convention of Working Ladies in Copenhagen in 1910.
The date wasn’t formalised till a wartime strike in 1917, when Russian girls demanded “bread and peace”. 4 days into the strike, the tsar was compelled to abdicate, and the provisional authorities granted girls emancipation.
The strike started on March 8, and this grew to become the date that Worldwide Ladies’s Day is well known.
What’s the theme this 12 months for Worldwide Ladies’s Day?
The theme for Worldwide Ladies’s Day 2025 is Speed up Motion.
In accordance with UN Workplace for Partnerships: “This year’s theme calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind. Central to this vision is empowering the next generation – youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls – as catalysts for lasting change.”
The aim of this year’s theme is to encourage people to positively impact women’s advancement, whether by calling out stereotypes, challenging discrimination, questioning bias or celebrating women’s success. Additionally, it is said that sharing knowledge and encouragement with others is key.
International Women’s Day, the organisation, is encouraging people around the world to use the hashtags #IWD2025 and #AccelerateAction while sharing positive messages about the important celebration to show solidarity with women and girls.
What’s happening on the day and in London?
There are lots of events happening across London to mark Worldwide Ladies’s Day on March 8, in addition to Ladies’s Historical past Month. A number of the occasions you could wish to participate in embody:
Cinesisters International Women’s Day Symposium: A day of celebration and enjoyable by way of movie in Soho, from 10am to 10pm. In addition to viewing screenings, attendees may have the possibility to attach with others and talk about the artistic technique of film-making throughout a time “when the variety of females behind the digicam is dwindling”.
The Fashion Brunch: A day of networking, speeches and runways that remember IWD on the Courtyard, London Heathrow, 11am to 5pm.
London strolling excursions: There are quite a few strolling excursions happening across the capital to have a good time IWD this 12 months. This features a Women of Westminister Tour, that runs all through March.
Feminist Folk Club Festival: This inaugural live performance is celebrating feminine folks singers. It runs from 2.45pm to 10pm at Cecil Sharp Home, London, and is £40 (£25 for under-30s).
There are additionally many occasions on different days, together with the Clarity Connect International enterprise management convention on February 27, at 8.30pm to 2pm, at Bloomsbury Ballroom.
For teenage ladies, there are digital Lean-In occasions for ladies to problem stereotypes on March 5 and 11.
The IWD marketing campaign is asking for folks to make use of this 12 months’s hashtags and for all IWD events to include a component of women-focused fundraising.
The Worldwide Ladies’s Day web site additionally contains an arsenal of free resources, together with graphics and occasion concepts so you’ll be able to participate in your personal method.
Will we nonetheless want an Worldwide Ladies’s Day?
The brief reply is sure.
Whereas girls’s rights and the equality narrative have excelled in some components of the world, the fact is that ladies nonetheless face numerous challenges due to their gender — even within the UK.
The World Financial Discussion board beforehand claimed that gender parity is a couple of century away, that means there’s a protracted technique to go.
The World Financial institution additionally revealed that 2.4 billion girls of working age world wide don’t obtain equal financial alternatives in comparison with males.
This marketing campaign is as a lot for future generations as it’s for folks as we speak. It’s about bringing these matters to the forefront, shining a lightweight on the challenges and discovering impactful outcomes.
IWD mentioned of this 12 months’s theme: “On the present charge of progress, it can take till 2158, which is roughly 5 generations from now, to achieve full gender parity, in response to knowledge from the World Financial Discussion board.
“Specializing in the necessity to Speed up Motion emphasises the significance of taking swift and decisive steps to attain gender equality. It requires elevated momentum and urgency in addressing the systemic boundaries and biases that ladies face, each in private {and professional} spheres.
“So, collectively, let’s Speed up Motion to hurry up the speed of progress worldwide.”
