Each year, as the calendar turns towards the eighth of March, a familiar cultural ritual unfolds. Corporate inboxes bloom with pastel-hued emails celebrating inspirational female leaders. Retailers offer curated gift guides, and social media feeds become a vibrant mosaic of tribute posts. This is International Women’s Day as many now know it: a day of appreciation, empowerment hashtags, and commercial opportunity. Yet, beneath this glossy, contemporary veneer lies a history of radical politics, ideological struggle, and profound social upheaval. This day is not a simple anniversary but a cultural palimpsest, its surface rewritten countless times, with the faint, fiery script of its revolutionary origins still visible beneath. Creativitys.UK will tell you about the complex, contested, and ever-evolving story of a day born in protest, co-opted by states, and commodified by capital.
A radical, revolutionary birth
To trace the origins of International Women’s Day is to journey back to the crucible of early 20th-century socialist and labour movements. The day was not conceived in a boardroom but forged in the fire of industrial unrest. Its earliest precursor was National Woman’s Day, organised by the Socialist Party of America in New York on 28th February 1909. This was not a day for flowers, but a commemoration of the previous year’s massive strike by 15,000 garment workers, predominantly women, who had taken to the streets to protest against brutal working conditions and demand better pay and voting rights. The idea soon crossed the Atlantic. In 1910, at the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, the German socialist and activist Clara Zetkin proposed the creation of a global day of action. Her vision was unequivocal: a single, annual day for women across the world to press for their demands in unison. The proposal was met with unanimous approval from the delegates of 17 countries, and the first official International Women’s Day was celebrated on 19th March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, with rallies drawing over a million people demanding the right to vote, to work, and to hold public office.
The suffrage colour story
Every powerful movement understands the importance of visual branding, and the early women’s rights movement was no exception. The colours that have become synonymous with International Women’s Day – purple, green, and white – have a specific and potent lineage, originating with the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the United Kingdom in 1908. This was the militant wing of the suffrage movement, led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The choice of colours was a masterstroke of political semiotics. Purple was chosen to symbolise dignity and justice, the very things they were fighting for. Green represented hope and the promise of a new beginning. White, though sometimes a contentious symbol, stood for purity in their public and private lives, a strategic counter-argument to the sexist smears that were often levelled against the suffragettes. These were not merely decorative choices; they were a uniform, a banner, a declaration of intent worn on sashes and carried on flags, instantly identifying a fellow activist and creating a powerful visual spectacle of unity and defiance.
The great Soviet pivot
The date of 8th March holds a particularly profound significance in Russian history, and it was a pivotal event there that cemented it as the official date for International Women’s Day. In 1917, against the backdrop of the First World War, which had claimed the lives of over two million Russian soldiers, women textile workers in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) began a strike. They flooded the streets, demanding “Bread and Peace.” This strike acted as a catalyst, spreading rapidly throughout the city and swelling into a mass protest that, within days, would topple the Tsar and spark the Russian Revolution. Following the Bolshevik revolution, Vladimir Lenin declared Woman’s Day an official Soviet holiday. This act of state recognition fundamentally altered the day’s trajectory. Throughout the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, 8th March transformed from a day of political protest into a state-sanctioned celebration of womanhood. The political edge was blunted, replaced with a tradition more akin to Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day, where men would present women – colleagues, friends, wives, and mothers – with flowers and gifts as a sign of appreciation. This created a profound narrative schism that persists to this day, between the day’s radical, activist roots and its more sentimental, depoliticized observance in many parts of the world.
A day of contrasts
This historical dichotomy is reflected in the vastly different ways 8th March is observed across the globe. In countries like Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Vietnam, it remains a major public holiday, a day off work steeped in the tradition of gift-giving. In China, many women are entitled to a half-day off work, a policy instituted by the State Council. In Italy, the day, known as Festa della Donna, is marked by a unique and beautiful tradition: the giving of bright yellow mimosa flowers. This tradition began in post-war Italy in 1946 when feminists chose the mimosa as the day’s symbol. Its selection was deeply symbolic: the flower is resilient, it blooms early in March even in difficult conditions, and its seemingly delicate blossoms are composed of countless tiny, individual flowers, representing collective strength. This contrasts sharply with the day’s observance in the West, where it is not a public holiday. Here, it exists in a tense space between genuine feminist activism – marked by protests, marches, and calls for legislative action on issues like the gender pay gap and reproductive rights – and what critics have termed “corporate feminism.” This is the world of branded campaigns, empowering slogans on t-shirts, and panels featuring successful women, a version of the day that is often criticised for celebrating individual female success while ignoring the systemic barriers that still face the majority of women.
The theme and the tension
In 1975, the United Nations officially recognised International Women’s Day, further cementing its place in the global calendar. Since 1996, the UN has designated an annual theme for the day, focusing on specific issues related to global gender equality. The 2024 theme, “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” highlights the urgent need to tackle economic disempowerment. This official, top-down approach from a major global institution adds another layer to the day’s identity. It provides a valuable framework for NGOs and governments to focus their efforts and raise awareness. However, it also exists in a state of perpetual tension with the grassroots, often more radical, spirit of the day. Whilst the UN themes focus on policy and economic inclusion, marches in cities from Mexico City to Madrid often centre on more confrontational issues: demanding an end to femicide, protesting against restrictive abortion laws, and challenging patriarchal violence. This is the enduring paradox of 8th March: it is simultaneously a day for celebrating women’s achievements and a day for protesting the very structures that continue to impede them.
The journey of International Women’s Day from a fiery call to action by socialist garment workers to a globally recognised, commercially viable event is a fascinating reflection of the past century’s social and political currents. It has been a day of revolution, a state-sponsored celebration, a feminist rallying cry, and a marketing opportunity. It is not one thing, but many things at once, holding within it a multitude of meanings and motivations. Its power today lies in this very complexity. It forces us to confront the distance between its radical origins and its contemporary reality, and in doing so, to ask ourselves what true gender equality looks like, and what part we are willing to play in the continuing fight to achieve it.
