Struggling to be heard

Annually commemorated by the United Nations, International Women's Day is a celebration of decades of struggle for equality between the sexes - and a reminder that, particularly in the developing nations, the battle continues.

This weekend sees the start of the build-up to International Women's Day. Some of you may wonder what the fuss is about. Others may know what the fuss is about but believe that a single day devoted to women's issues implies that the other 364 days of the year are not. Some may argue for an International Men's Day.

Simply by considering any of these viewpoints, you are responding to the purpose of the event - raising awareness of sexual inequality.

It was the German socialist Klara Zetkin who, inspired by an American day of celebration for working women, established the first international Women's Day: in March 1911, more than a million men and women in Austria, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland attended rallies, demanding women's rights to work, to vote and to hold public office.

Growing support

As support for the movement grew, women took the issue of peace under their belts. During World War I, women from both sides of the battlefield held rallies to protest against the war. In 1917, with 2million soldiers dead, Russian women marched for 'bread and peace'; days later, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and the Provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on February 23 on Russia's Augustine calendar; the Gregorian date was March 8.

The Charter of the United Nations, signed in San Francisco in 1945, was the first international agreement to proclaim gender equality as a fundamental human right, but the date gained added significance during the 1960s, when women in Chicago reinvigorated interest for International Women's Day as part of the revival of feminism. In 1975, the United Nations formally recognised March 8 as International Women's Day.

The beauty of the event has always been its ability to reflect the many different angles on sexual equality.

Increasingly, as problems at home are addressed, the impulse has been to look outwards. But in the UK, for example, one in four women will experience domestic violence and, according to the London School of Economics, women can forfeit up to £250,000 over a working lifetime if they decide to have children.

In the developing world, women's lack of control over fertility, their exposure to violence and the burden of poverty - which often falls heaviest on the females in the family - remind us that the battle for global equal rights is not over.

In India, around 25,000 brides are burned to death each year because of insufficient dowries; 'honour killings', where a rape victim may be killed to salvage the 'honour' of her family, are further examples of women being regarded as chattel or belongings. And the World Health Organisation says 85million to 115million females in 28 different countries have undergone some form of female genital mutilation.

In the name of progress

The Fawcett Society is an organisation that works with politicians and the media to make 'women and men equal partners at home, at work and in public life'. Director Katherine Rake says: 'International Women's Day is a reflection that there is still an enormous journey to make before we reach real equality between men and women. The day represents a chance to consider this each year. It is important to have a marker of where women stand in society.'

If half the population is disabled by factors ranging from physical fear to a lack of education, a country as a whole will suffer. A central organising principle of the UN has been that no enduring solution to 'peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms [is possible without the] active participation, equality and development of women'.

In the end, it is for peace and social progress that the struggle continues.

March 8 is International Women's Day (www.internationalwomensday.org)