On Mar. 8, women around the world celebrated International Women’s Day, a global annual celebration that recognizes women’s achievements, bringing awareness to gender-equal discrimination, and advocating for women’s rights.
“It’s important to celebrate the success of women, and to [acknowledge] their contributions, … how it’s affected, and helped us where we are today,” said Jaclyn King, a sponsor of WE club.
Starting as a labor movement in 1908, New York City saw one of the first reported organized protests for women’s rights and suffrage
The 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, guaranteeing women the right to vote and ensuring women could not legally be denied voting due to their sex.
After this, the first wave of feminism started to die down, since having the right to vote was the main priority at the time due to limited opportunities and the fear of speaking up against inequality between both sexes.
However, between the 1960s and 70s, the second-wave feminism movement was beginning, bringing awareness to a much broader perspective of the continuously limited rights against women in the workplace and sex positivity.
Second-wave feminists focused on social issues such as the societal pressure of having women being housewives and caring for their children instead of being in the workforce, along with reproductive rights.
Despite that, the second-wave feminists failed to address the struggles of women of color, leading to marginalization but following WOC to advocate for social class and the third-wave of feminism during the mid-1990s which led to more inclusivity to feminist activism.
In 1977, International Women’s Day was officially recognized by the UN as a global celebration. After many activism protests, Congress issued in 1987 that every March of the year would be declared as Women’s History Month.
Since then, women around the world have spoken out on gender discrimination, fighting for the same rights US women fought for over a century ago.
Although women were granted the opportunity to follow equal access to education as men between the 19th and 20th centuries, there is still a social stigma on what jobs women should be working. Workplace culture and the idea of “male-dominated fields” prevent women from getting into certain fields, including fields related to STEM and trades, fields perceived as “too manly for women”.
”We’ve got to start teaching young women how to sit in their power, and understand that they have it, that they can use their voice and be powerful with just their voice, and gender change with just their voice,” said Jamie Piper, a sponsor of the SD#308 Coalition.
Now more than ever, women need to be supporting each other by advocating for the discrimination women still endure. The manner of speaking up and coming together is what has brought us the many rights we didn’t use to have several decades ago. That doesn’t mean that the far for equality is over, not just in the US but worldwide where women’s rights are limited.
When women come together as a group and do protests… not hating each other, but lifting each other up, that’s when changes are made,” said Jessica Yandun, a teacher in the Spanish Language Department.
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