March 8 is usually known as International Women’s Day. This year was was a little different. Women from all around the world showed up in the streets protesting against gender inequalities.
The movement started in Spain in the morning when all the female workers who would have been working at that moment left their warm homes and offices and they filled the freezing streets of Madrid and Barcelona and many other cities in Spain. They announced a 24-hour strike to create change in their lives.
After the news was scattered around Europe, many other protests started in big cities such as London, Paris, Jerusalem, Kosovo and Karachi. In fact, while you were in your class talking about resistance and power, right next to our school hundreds of Indian women were holding banners, screaming their worries demanding equality between the two genders.
International Women’s Day 2018 was celebrated like never before in the history of the day. But it wasn’t in vain. The events that happened on March 8 mark one more big step toward equality.
This isn’t the first event of this kind, many other women’s rights protests occurred over time. However, what seemed interesting about this strike was that the government didn’t go against the ones who were in the streets that day. It’s true that the government tried to calm the spirits in the streets, but they didn’t try to stop the protests. That shows there are more and more people on the side of gender equality – even more than the millions that showed up on the streets.