Happy International Women’s Day!
Every year on March 8th, people celebrate the achievement of women across the globe, as well as raise awareness of the bias and discrimination that remain.
While the idea of a ‘Women’s Day’ was first conceptualised back in 1909, International Women’s Day was declared a national holiday following the Russian Revolution, and has been celebrated on March 8th ever since.
With the United Nations beginning to promote it heavily from 1977, the day has become mainstream and is celebrated across the world.
As well as celebrating women, March 8th is supposed to be a time to think about what can be done to drive gender parity, and why only 14 countries in the world have full equal rights for women.
However, the day has often come into contention, with many questioning why women need their own day to be celebrated, and if there is an International Men’s Day to match.
Despite the problematic connotations of this question, the answer is yes, obviously.
International Men’s Day falls on November 19th, after being introduced back in 1999.
However, it seems no one cares about it until it comes to women’s time to shine on International Women’s Day.
The Mirror reports that searches for International Men’s Day were higher in March 2023 than in November 2022.
Additionally, back in 2013 there were 25,000 posts on X, formerly Twitter, about International Men’s Day, but nearly half of them came about on March 8th – aka International Women’s Day.
So, next time that you ask why there isn’t an International Men’s Day on March 8th, I would kindly request that you shut your gob, and wait just one more day until the world can go back to being about men, as it seems to be every other day of the year.
