Every year, women and men around the world celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8. The IWD has grown from a labour movement to an annual event recognised by the UN. The seeds for which were planted back in 1908, when 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York; demanding shorter working hours, higher wages and the right to vote. Clara Zetkin, an activist and advocate for women’s rights, suggested an exclusive international day designated solely for the empowerment of women. It was unanimously agreed upon at the International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen in 1910 and first officially celebrated in 1911 in four countries. In 1975, the UN started celebrating the day internationally.
The IWD has become a day to celebrate the struggles and momentous achievements of women. On this day, we look back at how far women have come in society. The political roots of the day are still exemplified in strikes and protests to raise awareness about lasting inequality. The UN announced their theme for IWD 2022 as “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.” They will be hosting events, including an international virtual conference, to recognise how women worldwide are responding to climate change. According to the IWD’s website, this year’s selected hashtag is #BreakTheBias, which asks people to imagine “a world free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination.”
Aurat March has proven to be a phenomenal success; forcing societies to acknowledge the efforts of women.
The IWD is celebrated worldwide with festivals and protests. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, the time needed to close the global gender gap has increased from 99.5 years to 135.6 years. A 2021 study by UN Women based on 13 countries depicted that 45 per cent of women claimed that they or a woman they knew experienced some form of violence during the pandemic-with the most common forms of abuse being verbal and outright denial of basic resources. Such statistics highlight the unfortunate realities of women worldwide. With an aim to bring about positive change, feminist groups around the world have organised demonstrations in the last few years; demanding equal working rights, abortion rights and an end to violence against women. Many campaign for their governments to revoke gender discriminative laws and push for new laws to protect women.
The first IWD march in Pakistan, known as the Aurat March, was organised by a small group of women in 2018 in Karachi who hoped to draw attention to the violence and inequality faced by women across the country. When women organised the first Aurat March, they did not expect a large turnout. However, women from all walks of life joined together to raise their voices for basic rights. Issues such as inheritance rights, rights to education, access to health services, domestic violence and equal wages were raised through speeches and placards. Although many dismissed the massive turnout as a one-time fluke, women took it as a wake-up call. The event only increased in magnitude over the subsequent years. The march spread to a multitude of cities across Pakistan and even men began to participate in the event. Aurat March has proven to be a phenomenal success; forcing societies to acknowledge the efforts of women.
With continued support and the organisation of the annual Aurat Marches, Pakistani women hope to achieve similar milestones. Women who take part in the march display a great deal of symbolic power, but such outrage of demanding rights is limited to the more urban areas in Pakistan – Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi – even though around 63 per cent of Pakistani women live in rural areas. While women worldwide and in Pakistan’s urban areas hope to close the wage gap and attain more positions of leadership, women from rural areas in Pakistan would like to be able to leave their homes without permission from male family members; most are currently financially and emotionally dependent on men. Therefore, although the Aurat March provides an excellent opportunity for Pakistani women to raise their voices against the injustice they face, the march is restricted in its scope, as most of its participants are from urban towns and not subjected to the even greater barriers faced by rural women. The march seems to comprise only a small subset of Pakistan’s women: the urban and upper-middle classes. This year, protestors hope to see organisers make a greater effort to include various ethnicities, classes and sects of women in Pakistan.
The writer is a student.