Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), a major annual celebration of appreciation for women worldwide - their social, political and economic achievements. The first IWD was instigated by US socialists in 1909, and on subsequent IWD dates women have rallied for peace in the build-up to World War One and catalysed the start of the Russian Revolution in 1917. IWD has since become a public holiday in almost thirty countries, mainly in Eastern Europe and Asia, and is celebrated in a variety of ways from exchanging presents to women-only dinner parties.Empowerment of Women is known to be a major factor in improving society in general: as United Nations Sectary-General Ban Ki-moon writes, only in this way “can we successfully take on the enormous challenges confronting our world - from conflict resolution and peacebuilding to fighting AIDS and reaching all the other Millenium Development Goals.” At TSIC, we share this view and are therefore working pro bono for UNIFEM UK - the UK branch of the women’s fund at the United Nations.
In recognition of International Women’s Day we’ve selected a couple of interesting articles for our readers to take a look at.
The first is an article in The Huffington Post, which discusses the particular problems women face in displacement, disruption and mistreatment due to conflict and war (one of the focal points of this years IWD). To check out the article click here.
The second is a Guardian comment piece, which laments the disparity between the genders in UK parliamentary representation and salary. To take a look at the full article click here.
