International Women's Day
International Women's Day is a global day of remembrance and action that is celebrated annually on March 8th with a women-specific theme.
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In 1910, Clara Zetkin proposed the introduction of an International Women's Day at the Second International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen. It has been celebrated every year on March 8 since 1921.
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International Women's Day is a public holiday in only one federal state: Berlin. In January 2019, the Berlin House of Representatives passed a resolution to this effect and included International Women's Day as a public holiday in the "Law on Sundays and Public Holidays" of the state of Berlin. In 2022, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's public holiday law was amended in the state parliament and since 2023, March 8 is also a public holiday there.
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nations have International Women's Day as a public holiday, including Armenia, Cuba and Vietnam.
International Women's Day has its roots in the USA, where women's labor movements called for a "Women's Day" for the first time in 1908 to demonstrate for women's suffrage. On August 27, 1910, the German socialist politician and women's rights activist Clara Zetkin proposed the introduction of an international women's day at the Second International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen. This took place for the first time on March 19, 1911 in four European countries and the USA and grew in popularity over the following years. The central concern at the time was the fight for equal rights and the right to vote for women.
In 1921, the Communist Women's Conference set International Women's Day on March 8, but in 1933 it was abolished by the Nazi regime and replaced by Mother's Day.
While International Women's Day remained alive in socialist Germany and the communist countries after 1945, it was only celebrated again in West Germany at the end of the 1960s, this time on the initiative of the New Women's Movement.
In 1977, the UN General Assembly also decided to recognize 8 March as International Women's Day. To this day, this day of action remains an important platform for the women's movement.
