Backyard

Another lovely scene from my daughter's  backyard! 

Today is International Womens Day!  It may come as a rather sad surprise that International Women’s Day was first celebrated on February 28th, 1909 in New York. Two years later, German socialist Luise Zietz proposed that the holiday become an annually observed one that would celebrate various women’s issues, such as suffrage, so as to promote equal rights for women. The first few International Women’s Days were celebrated in a quite different fashion than they are nowadays, with hundreds of demonstrations taking place in Europe. During these demonstrations, women demanded they finally be given both the right to vote and to hold public office. 

Employment sex discrimination was also an important issue. In 1917, the International Women’s Day demonstrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia, helped initiate the February Revolution, when women marched through the city demanding an end to World War I. This shocked even Leon Trotsky, who, much like other Russian leaders of the day, did not expect the Women’s Day protests to cause that much of a stir. Until 1977, Women’s Day was celebrated mainly in socialist countries. It was only after the United Nations General Assembly’s decision to proclaim March 8th International Women’s Day that the holiday gained worldwide popularity.