| By Gale Staff |
March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD), a global holiday meant to inspire reflection on women’s achievements throughout history and make meaningful commitments to expanding women’s rights and gender equality. The United Nations made the holiday an official observance in 1975. Since then, IWD has evolved and adapted, inspiring an online platform and several action-oriented social media campaigns.
IWD has become an opportunity for significant fundraising efforts, particularly benefiting important, female-empowered organizations like the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. It’s a day for powerful speeches and marches meant to emphasize the often-overlooked contributions of women and shed light on continuous issues like the gender pay gap and violence against women.
With Gale Academic OneFile, faculty members and research librarians can access an extensive collection of resources regarding IWD and women’s rights in general. Whether for academic research purposes or to build a syllabus of assigned readings for undergraduate learning, users can always feel confident in the high-quality, neutral information housed in Gale.
Study the History Behind the Holiday
While the UN first recognized International Women’s Day in 1975, its roots lie decades earlier. The holiday’s exact conception is somewhat debated within the academic community, but it’s largely believed that the holiday is tied to a garment worker strike in 1908. In late February of that year, thousands of female workers in New York City went on strike. Frustrated by poor working conditions, unequal wages, and sexual harassment, they organized a march in protest. In response, the Socialist Party of America celebrated the first National Women’s Day in their honor. Almost 10 years later, on March 8, 1917, thousands of women workers in Russia organized their own protests. Many experts consider their displays of civil disobedience as the spark that led to the Tsar abdicating the throne on March 15.
Those pursuing a more in-depth consideration of the holiday’s roots can find detailed articles in Gale Academic OneFile. With our supplemental features, you can easily navigate through a compilation of related resources, such as a biographical piece on Clara Zetkin, a feminist orator and activist who helped inspire the momentous 1917 worker’s strikes and unrest in Russia.
Consider Modern-Day Movements
Beyond the holiday’s history, faculty members may wish to explore more modern forms of women’s activism as well as current issues. After all, while strikes and demonstrations are still relevant, 21st-century feminist activism is more often defined by social media campaigns. Many universities support student-organized fairs or other events to bring attention to IWD’s ongoing significance.
Academics have no shortage of current events to view through the lens of women’s rights. Find personal stories from women seeking abortions in the aftermath of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision or watch video footage from the female-led protests in Iran against the “morality police.” There are feminist concerns within our own institutions of higher education as well, where female academics still battle old-school exclusionary traditions and unequal representation.
Whatever direction your research takes, Gale Academic OneFile’s query tools mimic a more traditional search engine, allowing users to adapt immediately to our functionality. However, we take the research one step further with advanced search features and a visual topic finder, helping you and your undergraduate students locate better results faster.
Find Content You Can Trust
Topics around women’s rights, like reproductive freedoms and violence against women, are sensitive and often subject to misinformation. When you use results from a Gale Academic: OneFile query, you are assured of their quality and accuracy. You will also find a range of voices, including those that criticize and question IWD’s relevancy and effectiveness. After all, how useful is social media activism for women who don’t have reliable internet access? And how can one justify IWD’s socialist roots with the capitalist ideas of many of the businesses and politicians that promote the holiday?
You and your undergraduate students will find thousands of peer-reviewed (and often full-text) articles that help navigate these challenging questions. And, when you use Gale content for your research, you can trust our accurate bibliographical information and customizable citation options.
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