March 8th has come around once again, and for the 44th time since 1975, the world officially celebrates #InternationalWomensDay. But did you know that International Women’s Day is more than just another hashtag holiday? More than just another internet holiday to finally acknowledge the women in our lives who always hold us down?
International Women’s Day has a history that goes all the way back to the early 20th Century, an era when women around the globe were fighting to take ownership of something they were denied for so long, equality.
It’s ironic really. No one can give you something that all humans are inherently born with — freedom, equality. These intangible ideas aren’t things that we can give each other like parents give children gifts on their birthdays. Yet that is the reality many of our predecessors faced; they had to take back what was, in a sense, taken from them after birth. Throughout the decades, women’s movements, protests, and revolutions from America to Eastern Europe resulted in that restoration of equality: the ability to work, vote, hold public office, and live uninhibited like anyone else.
The fight continues today just as it began long ago. We celebrate International Women’s Day not on a frivolous whim to recognize women because they exist.
We celebrate International Women’s Day to remember the journey it took for women to rightfully be all they can be today. We celebrate to remember that it’s an ongoing process.
But, by all means, big up your moms, sisters, girlfriends, wives, and daughters online today, because they’re pretty awesome all by their lonesome too. To women!
Comments