The global theme for International Women’s Day 2021 is ‘Women in Leadership: Achieving a Future Equal Future in the COVID-19 World’. COVID-19 affects women and girls in a profound way and increases the inequalities they face on a daily basis. A key contributor to a more similar COVID-19 world is increasing access to women’s leadership roles. Unfortunately, women still face significant cultural, socio-economic, and political barriers to accessing leadership.

On 8th March in 1908, a group of women working in a garment factory in the United States marched through the streets of New York demanding the right to limit their 16 – hour shift to 10 hours. One year after that event, in 1909, there was an idea for International Women’s Day. The decision to officially celebrate Women’s Day came after a meeting in Copenhagen in 1910. There, they chose 8th March as the day of celebration. Women’s Day was declared for the protection of women’s rights and the advancement of women.

The first celebration was held in Copenhagen in 1911 when World Women’s Day was celebrated in several countries. These include Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland. Women did not have the right to vote until the end of World War I, and since then women have had the right to vote in many parts of the world. Women were given the right to vote in all countries of the world with the formation of the United Nations after World War II. History has shown that most of the developed nations of the world have made unwavering contributions to the governance of women. According to Indian philosophers, a woman is the “goddess of fortune” or the goddess of the house.

Since a woman was once a daughter, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, she really deserves the respect of the male side. But sometimes when we look at the media coverage, it is important to rethink whether the insults that men inflict on women really give women the respect they deserve.