Why we Celebrate International Women’s Day? Their Empowerment and Leadership!

Women’s Day is a worldwide celebration of women around the world. This is a global occasion decided by the UN and is celebrated every year on 8th March. Although, it’s celebrated more wholeheartedly in different countries due to many technological, cultural, as well as sexist reasons, it is quite a crucial part of the feminist as well as women’s rights movement and it has a long history behind it.

International Women’s Day

The occasion came into action ‘officially’ in the year 1911. Both men and women in countries like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark had rallies to make the women’s rights legal. In the United States of America, this occasion was mandated even earlier on 28th February 1909. The celebration continued on the last Sunday of February in the year 1913. According to the Julian calendar, Russian women also celebrated their first international women’s day festival.

History

The same occasion in Germany and London was celebrated on March 8th 1914. The different dates in different countries was due to the fact that the two World Wars ended at different times, hence, some countries celebrated it earlier than the others. Around this time, there were many different social evils around the world and many amendments were made to the women’s rights.

There was a resolution passed in the year 1975 about reserving a United Nations Day for International Peace and Women’s Rights on any day of the year by the Member States. This date was proclaimed to be March 8 in the year 1977 to be called as the UN day for world peace and women’s rights from that day on.

Unfortunately, the bustling sound of the gender equality chants were decreasing day by day until the year 2011. This is the year when the International Women’s Day marked its 100 year anniversary and the day was once again the talk of the town in every city of the world. New rise of feminism has once again taken over the world and media has lately been too upbeat to highlight women’s issues.

Significance and Importance

If you look around wherever you live, do you see people treating both the genders on an equal scale or is there some bias for one particular side? The things are today seeming quite good and smooth for women. This is generally because of multiple movements that sucked the world’s attention to one single matter of women’s rights that applied enormous amounts of pressure on the very foundations of the society to rethink its policies regarding women and the way they should be treated.

International Woman’s day claimed a day from the world to focus on a problem and, more than 100 years ago, provided people with a day to stand against the sexist laws in the constitution. There has been a huge amount of changes if we look back. Although, this too is a fact that there are still a long ways to go. The globally celebrated International Women’s Day is the perfect day to focus on the issues that needs addressing and the progress world has made when it comes to treating women equally and on the same wavelength as men.

Many women are establishing workforces and graduating with degrees. Women aren’t just earning as equally as men are but also establishing corporations quicker than men. Women own 1/3rd of the world’s businesses.

Financial Empowerment

Due to the emergence of nuclear families and the digital industrialization has made the financial conditions of women better than ever before and provided them immense opportunities to re-adjust their lives. Women are consistently seeking more and more from every part of their lives and in the process, taking a while to rethink their expenditure on their own leisure resulting in ‘Leisure Consciousness’.

Based on consumer spending, women account for 70-80 per cent, via their combination of buying abilities and influence. By 2018, the international incomes of women are projected to amount to an astonishing USD 18 trillion. Even though, millennial women are worth USD 7 trillion when it comes to their expenditure values and affect 85 percent of all the customer purchases, they have also been the generation to do things differently. Things might not matter, however, fulfilling experiences do.

Increasing women participation

Women are being drastically aware of the significance of leisure on their health and mind and are still willing to make some room in their lives for it. Women spend 13% on foundation and 18% on concealer with 35% of the female consumers utilizing more than five make up materials daily. Three skincare products are being used by 80% of the women every day.

As nuclear households have exploded nowadays, investing on their own has become quite possible for women. Close to 15.6% of the entire urban household in the country are either double or single-people units. In the last 10 years, this number has increased by 70%. This percentage will just keep on increasing and by the year 2025 will see a staggering growth of 74%. This is quite a significant shift as nuclear families will be expediting around 20% to 30% more than joint families.

The change can be easily observed in the purchasing pattern by women. This is a proven fact that 91% women plan their homes, 94% purchase home furniture, 60% automobiles, and around 51% customer electronics.

Their Choices

When it comes to a loan/financial segment, it has noted that there has also been a spectacular rise in their decision-making and purchases over there as well. Women pamper themselves by making accurate decisions to take loans.

According to a research, 72% of millennial women try to spend more on experiences than on materialistic things. Hence, due to this, there has been a surge in the wave of retail disruption due to these experiential fulfilments. The millennial woman has been prioritizing her time to travel and adventures. According to travel agents, 73% of these agents have state that more women travel alone than men do. 93% of women plan to participate in a ‘girlfriend’s getaway’ in the next 3 years as one in four women have already done that.

Synopsis

International Women’s Day 2021 is an inspiration to unitedly work towards reversal of long- inequalities. It should include unequal assignment of work at home, pay gap, and undervaluation of work done by women.

Mamta Sharma


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