brooke smith
By Brooke Smith on 21 February 2018

International Women’s Day celebrates the growth in women’s freedom following the 19th century: for example, voting and acceptance into the workplace. It remains important to this day as, even now, women around the world continue to experience oppression and mistreatment.

International Women’s Day reminds people of a previous time in which gender inequality was at its worst, causing women to suffer greatly.

However, lots of things have improved in the treatment of women, including such milestones as the right to vote in 1920 and the UK’s first female prime minister in 1990. Initially, women were ascribed to domestic activity such as housework or raising children. Nowadays this has been changed as women are now, in majority, accepted in the place of work following the rise of complicit masculinity and a collective agreement of equality.

We use International Women’s day to appreciate the change that society has made to understand that women can now do as they please in many other situations. The idea of the old stereotypical women’s role responds to the concept of the nuclear family which is now a rare situation in which women must now help themselves. This is now agreed in consensus in most areas and is a contribution to why equality is compulsory.

Throughout time, society forgets how things used to be and fails to remember how things have changed. International Women’s Day stands as a reminder of these changes and provokes us to see that more changes must be done. For example, it is still recorded that women are less likely to be employed by companies due to the likelihood that they may have a child and require maternity leave. Women are more likely to be discouraged from aspiring to higher status jobs, despite doing statistically better than males in education. Research shows women must work twice as hard as their male counterparts to achieve the same job.

International Women’s Day supports equality however and was not inspired to ridicule either males or females. It is meant to appreciate the found equality between the two. It shows that women fought oppression to be viewed on the same level, rather than superior and this should never be misinterpreted.