The bloody origins of International Women's Day

The origin of International Women's Day has its roots in the March 8, 1857, when hundreds of women in a textile factory in New York organized a march against low wages. In those years, the wages they received were lower in women more than half of what they perceived men and, in fact, they shared inhumane conditions in industrial jobs. The protest ended with police brutally dispersed the demonstrators from women and killing on the way to 120. Undaunted, the workers founded two years after their first union.

Since that historic March 8, today International Women's Day, the date became a recurring point for protests of women. In 1909, was held for the first time a national day of women , this being declared on February 28 by the Socialist Party USA The date was the setting for numerous protests under the slogan "Bread and Roses", in which the bread symbolizing economic security and roses quality of life.

The following year, at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women, meeting in Copenhagen, the demand for universal suffrage for all women reiterated and proposal of Clara Zetkin , was proclaimed on March 8 as International Women's Day . The proposal was approved unanimously by the conference, which had more than 100 women from 17 different countries, including the first three women elected to the Parliament of Finland were

Claiming a Women 's Day had its baptism of blood on March 25, 1911, also in New York. The shirt factory Triangle Shirtwaist burned at dawn with hundreds of women working within that ten - story building and could not escape the flames because the owners had blocked all access to prevent theft inside. The dramatic scene in the heart of Manhattan shocked public opinion and killed 146 women died. ABC described his readers of the time lived scenes as "horrific panic." Most of the victims were young immigrants , Jewish and Italian, who made ​​their living precariously in the textile workshop of the firm.

A change in labor laws

The tragedy, which coincided with the usual protests unfolded year after year in March, it served to US laws began to collect improvements in safety at work in the industrial sector. The factory fire also parlayed salvo for the cause of women workers and labor internationalism in general worldwide.The union Women's Trade Union League and the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union organized many of the protests against this tragedy, among which highlighted the silent funeral procession, which drew a crowd of about 100,000 people.

A few years later, Russian women chose the last Sunday in February 1917 to call a strike under the slogan "Bread and Peace". Political leaders opposed his celebration on that day, but the women went ahead despite everything. The fall of the Czar and the arrival of a provisional government granted women the right to vote. They also had in mind March. That historic Sunday was 23 February according to the Julian calendar , which is then used in Russia; however, according to the Gregorian calendar used elsewhere it was 8 March.

It was not until 1977 that the United Nations become the day of March 8 ,the International Day for the Rights of Women and International Peace , "to commemorate the historic struggle to improve the lives of women".