ASB celebrated International Women’s Day by putting up posters around school encouraging people to learn more about influential women and handing out pins with feminist logos.
The first National Women’s Day in the U.S. was celebrated Feb. 28, 1909. It became an international event when it was adopted by the U.N. in 1975 with the holiday on March 8. Since then, the fight for gender equality has expanded and is seen in the 17 Goals to Transform Our World where one of the 17 goals is gender equality.
Social media has also been a way for people to share their support of women and acknowledge the important roles women have played throughout time and their achievements in the fight for gender equality.
Vienna Huang, a sophomore who posted to Instagram about International Woman’s Day, said, “Seeing the posters about important women in history really made me, as a female, feel represented because you can see all the accomplishments of women, not just what men did.”
ASB planned weeks in advance in order to execute this event which recognizes women’s rights activists by teaching others facts about influential women.
Carolyn Wang, a part of Human Relations, said, “We need to recognize all the amazing women throughout history that have fought for the rights we now take for granted like voting and not being considered as a man’s property.”
Under this year’s theme of #BalanceforBetter, people participated by making signs about gender equality and taking pictures in front of important monuments.
Azucena Duran, a student in Human Relations, said, “It’s important to celebrate these events at school because many people go by unaware of how great people are in their communities, and I think it’s good to recognize people’s contributions to society.”
Posters with facts about women such as Oprah Winfrey, Yoko Ono, and Malala Yousafzai were put up around the school directing people to come and learn more about them in the quad.
“When I was younger, it was always about men: Albert Einstein, Neil Armstrong, W.A. Mozart, all key figures in history. It was as I was getting older that I discovered that women did just as much,” Huang said.
