International Women’s Day is celebrated each March 8 around the world. The day aims to recognize women’s achievements across the globe, with particular emphasis on women’s indivisible unity. Though women are united under a shared identity and a shared experience of marginalization, such marginalization–and how it is addressed–varies greatly depending on culture, community, and country.
Historically, International Women’s Day comes from Europe and North America’s 20th century women’s suffrage and labor movements. From there, it was adopted and standardized by the United Nations in 1977.
Though the holiday is seen as a unifying force for women around the world, it is important to acknowledge divisions in priorities, traditions, and methods of celebration. Such acknowledgement can foster a cultural awareness necessary for understanding women’s struggles around the world.
In the U.S., the holiday falls during Women’s History Month, and is celebrated by commemorating women’s achievements throughout American history. For centuries, U.S. history erased the achievements of marginalized people, such as women. But after activists pushed for female representation in history classes, women’s history was made an academic discipline unto itself. Now, Women’s History Month is celebrated each year in an attempt to make up for this diminution of their achievements and to reveal lost stories of women’s successes.
In China, on the other hand, women are honored by receiving a half-day off from work, and sometimes even receive gifts from the men in their lives. International Women’s Day was brought to China in 1949 by former Communist Party leader, Mao Zedong. In accordance with his communist ideology, Mao granted women more rights than ever before. Therefore, receiving time off from work is a type of tribute to communism in China, and an ode to the extent that women’s rights have improved since its adoption.
Latin-American and Caribbean countries as a whole mark International Women’s Day by organizing marches and parades. Women in these countries take the day to express their political viewpoints which they believe–when manifested at the voting booth–will ultimately lead to greater empowerment and self-determination. This includes protests against domestic violence, femicide, the gender pay gap, abortion restrictions, and more. These issues vary each year and across different countries, depending on what women believe needs to be addressed by their respective governments.
Women’s experience, and what women’s rights means, varies greatly around the world. Thus, in order for International Women’s Day to have its intended impact of uniting women, it must be understood through this lens of cultural relativism.
The UN-designated theme of “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress” for 2024 sheds light on economic disempowerment and its effect on women. This motto could connote unequal pay, differential treatment with regard to divorce law, poverty, or various other types of gender-based favoritism depending on the context. Therefore, this International Women’s Day, in order to truly “Invest in Women,” we must acknowledge that such cultural relativism in women’s experiences exists, and that women’s rights and achievements around the world are therefore also relative.