Today March 8th, we celebrate International Women's Day to commemorate and honor women's accomplishments, raise awareness about gender disparities and discrimination, and promote global support for women.
The first National Woman's Day was observed in the United States on February 28th, 1908. The Socialist Party of America designated this day in honor of the garment workers' strike in New York, where women protested against working conditions. But the first milestone in the US was much earlier - in 1848. Indignant over women being barred from speaking at an anti-slavery convention, Americans Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott congregated a few hundred people at their nation's first women's rights convention in New York. Together they demand civil, social, political, and religious rights for women in a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. A movement is born.
According to the United Nations, the fact that Women's Day is celebrated on March 8th is strongly linked to the women's movements during the Russian Revolution (1917).
New Zealand was the first self-governing nation to allow women to vote.
In the first known campaign of its kind, the Egyptian Society of Physicians went against tradition by declaring the negative effects of female genital mutilation. This was in 1920.
The US News reports that Scandinavia is the top country for women to live in. My home country Sweden ranks no 1, and it comes with a realization of how my upbringing and attitude are as a person.
I am lucky to be born in a country where we take our rights for granted. Particularly when hearing terrible news broadcasted worldwide from Iran where a woman was killed for showing her hair. The Iranian regime systematically discriminates against women, treating them as second-class citizens. Tehran enables and engages in violence against women and sexual exploitation of girls; harasses, jails, fines, and flogs women for 'crimes' like appearing in public without covering their hair and bodies; cracks down on activists for women's rights; forcibly segregates women from men; disproportionately punishes women in the judicial system; denies women political and economic opportunities; and favors men over women in family and inheritance law.
For women in Sweden, our sisters in generations before us had raised their voices and secured the way we live today. In Iran and many other countries, women fight for their rights, so this is an important day for us to be recognized – we need change and equal rights between genders in the world!
Where focus goes, energy flows!
Helen
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