Happy International Women’s Day!

“This is a man’s world, but it would be nothing without a woman or a girl”, as the famous song goes. March 8th is widely known as “International Women’s Day”. The tradition related to this festivity varies according to the country where it is celebrated. In China, it is not very relevant; in other countries, tradition requires that men buy flowers for women. In Italy, for example, the flower which has become the emblem of this day is the mimosa. Why this particular flower? In 1946, in Rome, women who were to organize the celebrations for this special day picked up the mimosa flower as a symbol, because it is a typical spring flower. In some countries of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS), men usually give women a bunch of tulips as a present. The tulip also represents, along the mimosa, the blossoming of springtime and acts as a symbol of love and warmth. Moreover, in some countries of the CIS, this day is considered a public holiday, therefore a day off (in fact, in Russia this year there will be 4 days off!). On the contrary, in China as well as in Italy, International Women’s Day is not a public holiday – it could perhaps only result in a shorter working day. Besides the flowers – which can be appreciated or not –, the holidays and despite what some may consider is an overly commercialized festivity, we believe it would be interesting to discover the real origins of this day. In some countries it is believed that International Women’s Day is related to some American women workers who had been locked in a factory by the owner who refused to allow them to join a strike and who subsequently lost their lives as a result of a fire, in 1857. In Italy and other countries some say that the International Women’s Day has been established in order to commemorate all of the 134 women who worked in a factory which produced shirts in New York and who also tragically died in a fire in 1911. In reality, records state that the fire occurred in February and, according to the country, the event changes date and place. So which is the real story of this festivity especially devoted to ladies? The actual truth may amaze you. Some historical sources report that the idea of celebrating March 8th as International Women’s Day was born in 1909 in The United States of America, on the initiative of the American Socialist Party. The following year, in 1910, this initiative has been taken further by Clara Zetkin, a famous advocate for women’s rights, during the International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen. From the documents of the congress, it’s not clear why March 8th had been selected as International Women’s Day; until 1921, up until that point, each single country decided its own date for the celebration. What happened then in 1921? In that year, in Moscow, during the Second Conference of the Communist Women, March 8th became the official date of this festivity, in memory of the demonstrations against the tsarism women led in St. Petersburg in 1917. Last but certainly not least, March 8th is the perfect occasion to acknowledge all of the people who constantly fight for women’s rights against violence and abuse and, most of all, all the women who had the courage to denounce them, as well as the ones who have to struggle daily against three big enemies of this planet: war, hunger and ignorance. Our special wish for today goes to them!