Happy International Women’s Day!
If you haven’t gotten a chance to sign onto Google today, or if you didn’t realize what today’s Google doodle is all about, it is to celebrate International Women’s Day!
Every year on March 8 people come together to celebrate the accomplishments women have made throughout the years while simultaneously advocating for gender equality.
In some countries like Armenia, Burkina Faso, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, International Woman’s Day is a public holiday where everyone gets off from work.
The Washington Post has listed a few different things you can do in order to celebrate today’s holiday.
By giving flowers to women you are supporting International Women’s Day since flowers are a symbol for the holiday. Yellow mimosa’s are a popular flower for woman to receive in Italy.
The holiday was started in 1910 by a German woman named Clara Zetkin who wanted to bring political awareness to women. Countries like Turkey, Sri Lanka and Palestine celebrate the holiday by protesting, the way Zetkin set out for this day to be. However, in most countries women are celebrated in a similar way to Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day by honoring women.
On March 8 women are encouraged to wear red lipstick for the “Rock the Lips” campaign. Those who want to flaunt their femininity can send pictures to Rock The Lips Tumblr.
Did you ever think about eating a cupcake for feminism? Some restaurants and bars in the US are giving away free cupcakes to women, but not everyone is too keen on this idea. Claire Melamed wrote about cupcake feminism for International Women’s Day: “Cupcakes are just so twee-ly, coyly, ‘ooh no I really shouldn’t’-ly, pink and fluffily, everything that I think feminism is not. It’s feminism-lite, feminism as consumption and ‘me time’ (grr), rather than feminism as power and politics and equal pay.”
How are you going to celebrate International Women’s Day?
