PrintUNA members mark International Women’s Day
Today is International Women’s Day, celebrated by women and men alike throughout the world.
As members of a profession in which women predominate, nurses are particularly conscious of the need to continue the effort everywhere in the world to secure justice and equality for girls and women that International Women’s Day symbolizes.
The United Nations theme for International Women’s Day 2015 is: “Empowering Women. Empowering Humanity. Think of It!”
UNA emphasizes equality for all working people, regardless of their gender, in the way it represents its members and in the broader positions it takes issues in Canadian and Alberta society.
International Women’s Day began with the trade union movement and the struggle for workers rights, which, as UNA President heather Smith reminds us, “are the same as women’s rights.”
“It is entirely appropriate that unions like United Nurses of Alberta should carry on this work when there is still so much to do in Alberta and Canada, and throughout the world,” she said. “Finger-pointing by the Alberta government that blames public sector workers for the province’s budgetary problems and the continuing growth in the wage gap between women and men in Alberta are examples of problems in Alberta that need to be addressed.”
Smith describes the occasion as a great opportunity for all of us, regardless of our gender, to look ahead to the potential and future opportunities that our sisters, daughters and granddaughters can experience.
The origins of International Women’s Day have been traced to labour disputes in New York City in 1857 and 1908, where workers protested the dangerous, overcrowded and exploitive working conditions of women in the garment industry.
The first International Women’s Day was celebrated in 1911. In 1977, the United Nations urged all countries to set aside a day to celebrate women’s rights.
The symbols of International Women’s Day are bread and roses – the bread representing women’s struggle for economic equality and the roses their women’s continuing efforts for a better quality of life.
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