International Women’s Day

International Women’s Rights Day occurs on 8 March each year to commemorate both the social, economic, and political achievements, as well as the discrimination and violence that women have been and still are subjected to in every part of the world.

It is said that on March 8, 1908, the workers of the Cotton textile industry in New York were victims of the fire that broke out inside the company where they had been segregated by the owners in response to the strike called by the workers who asked for better working conditions. and higher wages.

In St. Petersburg, on March 8, 1917 (February 23 according to the Julian calendar then in force in Russia) the women of the capital led a great demonstration that demanded the end of the war: the feeble reaction of the Cossacks sent to suppress the protest encouraged subsequent demonstrations that led to the collapse of tsarism by now completely discredited and lacking even the support of the armed forces, so that March 8, 1917 remained in history to indicate the beginning of the Russian Revolution in February. For this reason, and in order to fix a day common to all countries, June 14, 1921, the Second International Conference of Communist Women, held in Moscow a week before the opening of the III Congress of the Communist International, set 8 March is the “International Day of the Workers”.

In Italy, International Women’s Day was held for the first time only in 1922, on the initiative of the Communist Party of Italy, which celebrated it on 12 March, the first Sunday following the now fateful 8 March. In those days, the fortnightly periodical Compagna was founded, which on 1 March 1925 reported an article by Lenin, who disappeared the previous year, which recalled March 8 as International Women’s Day, which had played an active part in social struggles and in the overthrow of tsarism.

Mimosa was chosen as a flower for Women’s Day because in the language of flowers it indicates strength and femininity, it was Teresa Mattei who chose mimosa as a symbol. She chose this flower because it is easy to find in the countryside in Italy in March, it is not expensive and it is delicate, tenacious and resistant as women are.