by Siddarth Tumu ’18

On Wednesday, March 8, the international community came together to celebrate International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to the movement for women’s rights. The earliest Women’s Day observance was held on February 28, 1909 in New York and was organized by the Socialist Party of America. The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1975 (which was declared International Women’s Year) and started assigning a theme to go along with annual celebrations of International Women’s Day in 1996. Past themes include Women in Decision-making and Empower Rural Women, End Poverty and Hunger. This year’s theme was Women in the Changing World of Work: Planet 50-50 by 2030, Be Bold for Change. The day has been declared a holiday (either as an official holiday for all, official holiday for women, or a non-official holiday) in a majority of Europe and Asia and parts of South American and Africa. It is noteworthy that as of yet, the United States has not declared International Women’s Day an official holiday. Instead, women wear red to stand in solidarity and are encouraged to stay at home and not work in any capacity.

To get a better perspective on the ways in which the NA community celebrates International Women’s Day, I sat down with Mrs. Rezvani, the faculty advisor for POWER. She said that she wishes more was done to celebrate the day: “Though we have come far in terms of women’s rights in America, I think the NA community should engage in projects to help women on a local or international level.” She believes that the NA community can pick a population and an issue to focus on next year to do more as a school to celebrate International Women’s Day. Mrs. Rezvani noted that while there was no recognition of International Women’s Day during all-school morning meeting on March 8, she doesn’t believe the omission was intentional. Given the number of women in NA (students, staff, and faculty), Mrs. Rezvani doesn’t believe that the NA community would be able to function if all women were to strike on International Women’s Day but also believes that there are other, even better ways to make a statement. She explains that one such way is to pursue more events like the Women’s History Month presentation, which served as a productive means to bring the community together and raise awareness about the struggle for women’s rights. She noted that while it would have been nice to have the presentation fall on March 8, the cumbersome scheduling process of morning meetings proved to be a challenge. Mrs. Rezvani concluded by saying that it seems very outdated that the United States does not recognize International Women’s Day in any sort of capacity while many other countries do but is still happy that so many men and women come together to recognize and celebrate this holiday.

As Mrs. Rezvani noted, the NA community already does a lot in recognizing and celebrating International Women’s Day, but more can always be done to work with specific populations and causes. It will be interesting to see how not only the NA community but also the international population embraces International Women’s Days in the future as women continue to become more prominent as leaders and symbols of society.