Hard-sell on Women's Day

The anniversary has become a commercialised event

The celebration of International Women’s Day, which falls today, started over a century ago, building on a commemoration of a national women's day in the US when garment workers struck work to protest their working conditions. About 40 years ago, the United Nations put it on the annual calendar as a means of fostering awareness about gender equality and women’s empowerment. The idea is well meaning, but the hard fact is that the commemoration has not sparked genuine social change. A recent UN report acknowledges that not only has progress towards gender equality been slow but no country — not