International Women's Day 2024: Let's Create A More Inclusive World

This year's International Women's Day campaign carries the theme of inclusion, which emphasizes the importance of inclusion in achieving gender equality. To this day, more than a century people celebrate International Women's Day which is celebrated on March 8 every year.

When we inspire others to understand and appreciate women's inclusion, we create a better world, "as quoted by the official International Women's Day (IWD) website.

Through International Women's Day, both women and men around the world are reminded of the strength of solidarity and the importance of collective action in realizing a fairer and more inclusive world.

IWD emphasized that the commemoration of International Women's Day is not specifically aimed at a country, group, or organization. This is a day of global activism and collective celebrations that belong to all parties committed to promoting women's equality.

Gloria Steinem, a well-known journalist and activist in the world once explained, The story of the struggle for women does not belong to a feminist or any organization, but belongs to the collective efforts of everyone who cares about human rights.

literally, inspire inclusion means inspiring inclusion. Simply put, IWD calls this theme a call for all parties to appreciate and practice women's inclusion in various aspects of life.

The goal of this campaign is to create a more inclusive world and when women feel inspired to engage, a sense of belonging, relevance and empowerment will emerge.

The inclusion in question is not only about giving space, but also about respecting the contribution and presence of women in all aspects.

This year's campaign theme underscores the importance of inclusion in achieving gender equality. By promoting inclusion, it is hoped that each individual, community and institution can be inspired to act.

This is later expected to expand opportunities for women, as well as eliminate obstacles that make it difficult for women to participate in various fields.

Meanwhile, the UN Agency for women's empowerment, UN Women, carries a different theme in the celebration of International Women's Day. UN Women has the theme Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress.UN Women highlights the importance of investing in gender equality for women to accelerate the progress of a country.

"It is beneficial to invest in gender equality and women's empowerment, not only enjoyed by women, but also the community," said Head of the UN Women Indonesia Program, Dwi Faiz, as quoted by Antara.

According to Dwi Faiz, women have extraordinary strength to improve the community's economy, so that investment to ensure the rights of women and girls is one way to ensure a fair and prosperous economy.

One of the challenges in achieving gender equality by 2030 is the lack of funding. According to Dwi, an investment of 360 billion US dollars (around Rp5.65 quadrillion) per year is needed to achieve gender equality in the world.

The movement of women in the early 20th century became the forerunner of the birth of International Women's Day. At that time, women began to voice their rights, including the right to work, to get a decent wage, and to choose.

Until then an important event occurred in 1908 when 15,000 women held demonstrations in New York, United States, demanding shorter working hours, better salaries, and the right to vote, such as being confiscated by the International Women's Day page.

A year later, the American Socialist Party for the first time declared National Women's Day on February 28 and this commemoration continues every last Sunday from February to 1913.

But in 1910 at the second Women's Labor Conference held in Copenhagen, a communist activist who advocated for a woman named Clara Zetkin initiated the idea of International Women's Day. She said that every year in every country should celebrate Women's Day on the same day. The conference, which was attended by more than 100 women from these 17 countries, then positively welcomed Zetkin's idea.

After reaching the agreement, International Women's Day for the first time was held in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911. More than 100 people, both women and men, attended the IWD's first campaign to voice women's rights to work, vote, be trained, hold public office and end discrimination.

However, the exact date of this celebration had not been formulated until finally in 1918 when women in Russia started a demonstration called 'Read and Peace' in response to the deaths of more than two million Russian intermediaries in the first World War.

Despite opposition by political leaders, the women's group continued to strike until four days later Czar was forced to abdicate, then the interim government gave women the right to vote.

At that time, the date of the women's action on February 23 was the Julian calendar used in Russia at that time. But in the Gregorian calendar, it happened on March 8 and this is what we have commemorated until now.