By Sarah Hines, Y11
International Women’s Day was first proposed by Clara Zetkin, a German socialist and
women’s rights activist, in 1910. It was first celebrated the following year on March 19, 1911.
It emerged from the labour movements in North America and Europe, and it was originally
made to protest women’s poor working conditions, low wages, and to demand their right to
vote. It then became internationally recognised by the United Nations in 1975 (International
Women’s Year).
Today, International Women’s Day is seen as a global day of unity and celebration. It is made
to focus on advancing gender equality and to empower women across political, economic,
and social spheres. Even if women have a lot more rights than before, there are still
many areas that are far from being equal.
Since this year’s Women’s Day was on a Sunday, the students at LGB chose to celebrate it the
following day. Many people volunteered to participate, with the help and support of the
Rotary Youth Club here at LGB.
First of all, they organised a bake sale with homemade biscuits, cupcakes… and the money
raised from that would go towards a women’s charity. In fact, many people came to give
money not only for the food but because they truly wanted to contribute towards helping
women.
They also had many beautiful bouquets of tulips on sale for people to buy and give to their
mothers and/or sisters.
Finally, they cut out lots of hearts, purple, pink and blue, for people to write messages
addressed to their mothers. They were then attached to the pole at the entrance of the
cafeteria so that everyone could see all the love and admiration the students have them.
And of course, this was a way to remind everyone that it was women’s day, and it created
the opportunity for them to easily celebrate it.
In fact, the week before, we spent the whole mentor class talking about Women’s Day. We
discussed the inequalities that they are still facing today and also what we should do to
realistically improve the latter. We discovered the fields in which inequality is the most
evident, such as science and job opportunities. In fact, if nothing is done quickly, it is
predicted that all gender inequalities won’t disappear until 2160, that is 134 years from now.
This is an extremely important subject to discuss with students since they are the next
generation and will therefore be able to act on it.
Women’s Day is therefore a very important event and the LGB campus was able to celebrate
it in the appropriate way.
