Officialized by the United Nations (UN) in 1977, International Women’s Rights Day was adopted by France in 1982. Since then, every March 8th is dedicated to this cause, for which much remains to be done. But in fact, why was this date chosen? We answer you.
International Women’s Rights Day is celebrated every year in many countries. Its purpose? To celebrate the victories and achievements in women’s rights, but also to make their demands heard, in order to improve the situation of women.”
To understand this, we have to go back in time a few decades. It all began in 1909, in the United States. That year, following a declaration by the American Socialist Party, the first National Women’s Day was organized. It is “celebrated throughout the United States of America on Sunday, February 28, 1909,” explains the UN on its website. “Women will then celebrate this day every last Sunday in February until 1913.”
The United Nations also points to another event in 1848 in New York State as a milestone in the creation of the day. Two American women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, “outraged by the prohibition against women speaking at an anti-slavery convention, gathered several hundred people at their Convention for Women’s Rights in Seneca Falls.
A first-of-its-kind event that allows participants to demand rights that women were denied at the time. “Together, they demand civil, social, political and religious rights for women in a text called the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.”
