International Women’s Day 2021: Theme, history, significance

The world is celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8 today. The purpose behind celebrating this day is to promote peace with women's rights. While every day is a women's day, this particular day is marked to honour all the women and their achievements regardless of the divisions, whether national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political.

Time and again, women have proved their worth by excelling in every field and bringing pride. They are not just powerful leaders in the economic and political domain but rule in sports, entertainment and other categories as well.

But do you know why International Women's Day is celebrated or how it started? Know what is the reason behind this.

History of International Women’s Day
International Women's Day stems from a workers' movement. It first emerged at the turn of the twentieth century in North America and across Europe, when in the year 1908, 15,000 women marched in New York City demanding fewer hours in the job.

Apart from this, they demanded that they should be given a better salary and also be given the right to vote.

A year later, the Socialist Party of America declared this day as the first National Women's Day at the Socialist International meeting in Copenhagen. Throughout the years, many changes and new objectives are brought to further engrave the meaning of this day and in 2015, countries adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. In it, Goal 5 is “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

In many countries like Cuba, Armenia, Mongolia, Russia, Uganda and Ukraine, International Women’s Day is an official holiday.

International Women’s Day 2021 theme
The theme for International Women's Day (8 March) this year is "#ChooseToChallenge." The theme 'Choose To Challenge' aims to call our gender inequality and celebrate women's achievements. It seeks to spread awareness about the importance of choice.

Significance of International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day is marked by celebrating all aspects of a woman's life. From being a housewife and taking care of her family to working as a professional outside home, the day aims to celebrate everything a woman does for her loved ones and for society. People celebrate this day by pampering the women in their lives and telling them how special they are.

The day is also significant to make people aware of women's rights, safety and gender equality. Also, there are colours for this day-- purple, green and white. Purple signifies justice and dignity, green symbolizes hope and white represents purity.

(IndiaTV News)