Happy International Women’s Day!

What, you didn’t know it was International Women’s Day? Wait, you did know that March is Women’s History Month, right?

Okay, okay. Maybe International Women’s Day is not at the top of your annual holiday calendar. But there’s good reason to be thinking about this 101-year-old tradition. So what is IWD?

IWD provides a common day for globally recognising and applauding women’s achievements as well as for observing and highlighting gender inequalities and issues. But not just on IWD, but all year round, many organizations and individuals work tirelessly to support gender equality through a multitude of initiatives, causes and actions.

Sounds good, right? Of course, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Here in America, we are in the middle of the thrashing vortex that is the War on Women (cue: Rush Limbaugh, et al). But compared to what women in many developing countries are dealing with on a day-to-day basis just to survive, it makes us look like a bunch of whiny, privileged assholes.

Yesterday, during a #sheparty tweet chat hosted by the Women’s Media Center, people from across the world (yes, I was tweeted by someone in Germany — in German — luckily that’s the language I took in college) talked about what the issues are facing women around the world and what we can do about it. In particular, there was a focus on how to connect with girls and raise up their voices.

And that’s a great question: How do we connect and inspire girls? I want to hear from you!

Here are some IWD posts to get your idea machine cranking:

• A Letter of Love from Men by Michael Kaufman
• Women Who Inspire from Huffington Post UK
• Looking at connecting girls in Africa by allAfrica
• Dia Internacianal de la Mujer by DA Morales at Tuscon Citizen
• Care.org IWD page

And there’s this video, which even with its little ad at the end is still a pretty nifty highlight reel of some amazing accomplishments by women:

Cross-posted on The Tired Feminist.