Although we should do it every day, today International Women’s Day we are taking special care to celebrate and applaud the tireless and inspiring work of women to overcome injustice and for a better tomorrow.
We have come a long way lifting all kinds of barriers and challenging obstacles since 1909, when the first National Woman’s Day was observed in the United States in honour of the 1908 New York garment workers’ strike when tens of thousands of women united to protest against inhuman working conditions.
But we still have a long way to go. Whether we are talking about domestic violence, a plague that haunts many women all around the globe, or environmental issues.
Climate change, water scarcity, and toxic pollution they’re all threatening and affecting the lives of women world-wide more often than not it is women, and children, who are the fastest and hardest hit by environmental crimes and abuse. Looking at the problems through the theme of this years International Women’s Day we are challenged to understand that the struggles for equity, liberty and sustainability are inextricably linked: to tackle one we must tackle them all.
Women’s Day is celebrated many different ways all around the world: in Russia, Mongolia, Cambodia and Vietnam this day is a national holiday.
In other countries like Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary or Cameroon women get flowers or gifts.
Coming from Hungary, a country that used to be a part of the Eastern Bloc of the Soviet Union, I cannot help but feel some irony looking back at all the political connotations around the celebration of that day.
However, I also have a wide nostalgic smile on my face remembering myself as a little girl feeling like a real woman getting my first huge ‘Woman’s Day’ red carnations at primary school. They seemed so big, reaching down to my ankle but I wouldn’t let anyone help me carry them home even though it meant that by the time I arrived, having swept across the village with them, I only could show a few green sticks to my mum.
This Women’s Day when many women are looking back on past struggles and accomplishments, women throughout the Greenpeace world are looking ahead. They are ready, willing and able to create a better world for everyone on the planet: women, children and men.
Happy International Women’s Day!
