A day dedicated to celebrating the cultural, social, and political achievements of women.

And a day to reflect on the issues that they still face globally.

But when did International Women’s Day start, who started it, and did it help destroy a

centuries old Russian monarchy?

Well, Let’s Find Out.

To unravel the true history of Women's Day we need to go back over 100 years.

The first hints of it appear around 1900.

The German Social Democratic Party were holding conferences to discuss women's issues.

Such as the fact that they weren't allowed to vote.

By 1907 the International Conference of Socialist Women had gathered in Stuttgart, Germany.

This was led by Clara Zetkin a German Marxist from the German Social Democratic Party.

One of her primary goals was to get women into work so that they could take part in

workers rights organisations.

So they had the means to improve their own conditions.

At the conference they demanded

“the right to universal female suffrage without qualifications of property, tax, education

or any other kind of barrier which may hinder members of the working class from availing

themselves of their political rights.”

Across the ocean in the US the Socialist Party and the Women’s national committee had declared

the first Woman’s Day.

Marching through the streets of New York they protested for better pay and working conditions.

Which took place on the 28th of February 1909.

The March 8th date hadn't been set yet.

Following this a second International Conference of Working Women came together in 1910.

There in Copenhagen over 100 delegates from across the world came together.

Clara Zetkin pushed the idea of an International Woman's Day.

A day every year and in every country were women could organise and press for equal rights.

After a unanimous vote, International Woman's Day was born.

These women at the conference were pushing some other revolutionary ideas.

They demanded an eight-hour working day.

They proposed that pregnant women stop working for eight weeks prior to giving birth, and

that women be paid “motherhood insurance” of eight weeks if the child lived and all

working women would enjoy these benefits, including agricultural laborers, home workers

and maid servants.

These policies would be paid for by a special maternity fund out of tax revenues.

These policies were supposed to not only help mother’s and keep them safe but also pay

women for the essential non-paid work that kept society functioning, while allowing them

to remain in the paid workforce.

These policies heavily influenced the ideas of maternity and paternity leave that are

common in nearly all developed countries today.

From it's very start International Woman's Day was a day for working women and it's goal

was to address their issues.

Following this.

International Woman's Day celebrations sprang up across Europe.

The first European celebration of International Woman's Day happened in Vienna on March 18

1911.

Women marched around the famous Ringstrasse carrying banners including red flags commemorating

the martyrs of the Paris Commune and demanding the equal right to vote.

If you don’t know what the Paris Commune is go check out Stepback History’s video

on the subject.

Link is in the description.

Millions of flyers soon carpeted Germany.

Crying out: “Comrades!

Working Women and Girls!

March 19 is your day.

It is your right.

Behind your demand stands Social Democracy, organized labor.

The Socialist women of all countries are in solidarity with you.

March 19 should be your day of glory!”

More than a million women took to the streets in Germany.

Crying out for equality.

The fervor continued into 1912 with the Lawrence Textile strike in the US, better known as

the Bread and Roses Strike.

Bread and Roses was the slogan coined by Rose Schneiderman.

A Polish-born American socialist and feminist.

During her speech she said

"The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too".

In other words, workers need more than just wages to survive, the bread.

They also need dignity and decent working standards, roses.

More and more demonstrations took place as Woman's day continued to be celebrated.

But then the world decided to have a war.

A First World War.

Across Europe political demonstrations such as Woman's Day were cracked down on to keep

peace on the homefront.

To oppose this war, Clara Zetkin organised the third and final Socialist Women’s Conference

in April 1915.

It drew delegates from across the globe including people such as Nadezhda Krupskaya and her

husband, Vladimir Lenin.

They stated that the war only benefited the rich and the arms manufactures and stole away

the sons and husbands of mothers.

The war went on despite all the efforts of thes e women, but the idea of Woman’s Day

also went on.

The most dramatic celebration of International Woman's Day was in 1917 in Russia.

Led by feminist Alexandra Kollontai.

She is a recipient of the Order of the Aztec Eagle award, which is completely unrelated

but I just thought was badass.

Women's Day had already caused a ruckus in Russia.

Russian women had observed their first International Woman's Day in 1913.

The following year all the organisers of the International Woman’s Day in Russia ended

up in handcuffs.

Which kind of dampened the celebrations.

But the war had changed things quite quickly.

By 1917 the amount of women working in factories had skyrocketed as men marched off to war.

The women replacing them were paid half as much.

On top of this women found themselves mostly working in the textile and chemical industries.

Ones with long hours and horrific conditions.

Things came to boiling point on International Woman's Day 1917 as women took to the streets

to protest their mistreatment.

Storming the streets of Petrograd on Feburary 23rd or March 8th on our calendar, women striked

against war, starvation, and the Czar.

In their thousands they marched through the streets calling out to factory workers, men

and women alike, to join them.

Two days later nearly every industry in Petrograd had ground to a halt.

The protests weren't just made up of workers anymore either.

Students, teachers, and those across the economic spectrum joined in.

Czar Nicholas ordered the military to shot if they deemed it necessary.

Soldiers and police smashed into the demonstrators.

But to no avail, they couldn't be stopped.

The women had managed to convince whole regiments to switch sides and join them.

As Leon Trotsky’s tells us this about the women.

“They go up to the cordons more boldly than men, take hold of the rifles, beseech, almost

command, ‘Put down your bayonets; join us!”

Russia's February Revolution had begun.

Trotski wrote, “23 February (8th March) was International Woman’s Day and meetings

and actions were foreseen.

But we did not imagine that this ‘Woman’s Day’ would inaugurate the revolution.”

7 days after International Womans' Day, Czar Nicholas II abdicated, ending 304-years of

Romanov rule over Russia.

The provisional government became one of the first governments of a major power to grant

women the right to vote.

In 1921, Clara Zetkin and Second International Conference of Communist Women in Moscow stated

that March 8th would now be the official date.

Lenin, with help from Zetkin made International Woman's Day a communist holiday in 1922.

Communists in China started celebrating it that year as well.

These things were eventually destroyed by Stalin.

In 1936, he reversed most liberal policies and banned abortion.

Women’s right to vote would become useless afterward.

But the idea still remained and the revolutionary spirit that caused them to be won in the first

place couldn’t be done away with.

With its connection to Communism and Russia, Woman's day fell out of favour in the West.

Especially as women gained the right to vote and people considered women’s fight for

rights to be over.

The US, gripped with panic and fear at the thought of communism's existence, disowned

the day entirely.

After 1922 information on it becomes scarce.

Sometime during the 1940's it seems to have switched names from Woman's day to Women's

day.

And so this day.

One that had inspired working women of the 20th century.

One that had been the rallying cry for rights and the fuel for a revolution was hidden behind

an iron curtain.

International Women’s Day remained a major holiday only celebrated in socialist countries

up until the 1970's.

But as Flower Power took hold in the late sixties, feminists brought the celebration

back and gave it new meaning as the women’s movement grew.

Most of the international community did not formally observe the date until 1975.

The UN celebrated International Women's Year that year, with Valentina Tereshkova the first

woman in space acting as the Soviet representative.

Since that year the UN officially celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8th.

International Women’s Day is now an official holiday in many countries.

On this day feminist demonstrations are held in many countries.

Because even though those early revolutionary women of the 20th century achieved an enormous

deal for women's rights.

The sad fact is that globally, women still earn less than their male counterparts, they

are less represented in business and politics, they suffer greater risks of violence and

carry the burdens of family care nearly single-handedly.

But every year brings more progress.

From Kabul to Kentucky every International Women's Day celebrates a new year with more

powerful women as this revolutionary day continues to inspire women just like it did over a century

ago.

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