International Women’s Day: Herstory

By Josephine Carrillo | Published March 4, 2023

Every year, most nations, if not all, celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8, to commemorate, honor, and show their respect to all individuals that identify as women, all over the world. 

According to History’s article written by Sarah Pruitt, the first country to ever celebrate women throughout history was the United States. Back in 1909, thousands of people gathered together in New York City on Sunday, Feb. 28, so that all women, including those who worked at the time, could participate in the march.

These women and their supporters only asked for equality in the workplace, shorter working hours, better pay, and most importantly, the right to vote. 

They wanted the right to be a part of and to be involved with their country’s politics and the right to vote for those who will represent them and will make decisions regarding their well-being. ; 

Dr. Consuelo Bonillas, coordinator of Women’s & Gender Studies at Kean, expressed the importance of women having the right to vote in elections.  

“Being given the right to vote in elections, be it local or national, has provided [some] women the opportunity for their needs to be heard and met,” Bonillas said. “Being allowed to run for office to help structure laws that can give women access to various support and resources.”

Bonillas also highlighted that International Women’s Day is something that needs to be achieved by women worldwide, citing the importance of getting pregnant and difficulties with abortion to back up her point.

Bonillas also added that women struggle with under-compensation at work, harassment at work or in their communities, unsafe working conditions, and having to pay taxes on menstrual products or not having access to such.

While thousands were gathered in New York City to protest in 1909, other groups of women and supporters of the cause went to Brooklyn, where Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a famous American writer, philosopher, and social reformer, happened to be giving a speech to her audience. 

Gilman was someone who firmly believed that women could be independent and empowered them in most of her novels.

Gilman told the Parkside Congregation in 1909, “It is true that a woman’s duty is centered in her home and motherhood…[but] home should mean the whole country, and not be confined to three or four rooms or a city or a state.” 

Two of Gilman’s novels that radically changed the mindset of women, and were a wake-up call for all, according to History of Women, Philosophers, and Scientists; were Women in Economics (1898), which incited women to be economically independent, and last but not least, Herland (1915), which was based on a fictional all women world and what it would be like to live in such a world. 

However, it was not until 1975 that the subject of International Women’s Day was discussed in an assembly of the United Nations, where it was accepted by all nations, as a worldwide holiday. 

In the Yearbook of the United Nations, Chapter 26, Section 2: Economic and social questions; it was written that the purpose of this was to “promote equality between men and women, to ensure, the full integration of women in the total development effort, and to recognize the importance of the increasing contribution of women to the development of friendly relations among States and the strengthening of internal peace.” 

All nations that were part of the assembly, despite their different political views, different ethnicity, and different history, agreed upon the importance of giving women an official holiday to celebrate them and give them the recognition they deserve. 

The United Nations theme for that year was “equality, development and peace”. 

Women in 2023 still struggle to acquire the recognition they deserve, and on  this International Women’s Day, women across the world should remember what Gilman said in her famous short fiction, The Yellow Wallpaper, “In a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response.”

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