Women’s day. The one day of remembrance where everyone wishes women thanks for all the achievements they have done. A one-day event after which everyone forgets that women are still. Fighting. For. Their. Rights.
How did Women’s Day even start? According to an article by International Women’s Day 2025, it was first celebrated in 1909 in the United States as a way of highlighting women’s fight for their rights, particularly suffrage (right to vote), and has been celebrated for nearly a century as a way to celebrate women’s achievements and the progress on gender equality.
But is it really that important to celebrate Women’s Day when not a single country in the world has achieved gender equality? The unequal wage gap between men and women still exists and one in three women will experience some form of violence in their lifetime.
For a long period of time, Women’s Day has been used as a tool to suppress women from doing things that have little to no impact on the society rather than empowering them by selectively remembering women’s achievements while completely ignoring the fact that women have to work harder to achieve something.
Take Zelda Fitzgerald, for example. Most of you do not even know her but what if I told you that her husband was F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of the famous novel, The Great Gatsby. What if I told you that parts of this novel were copied from his wife’s diary without giving any acknowledgement to her? Even now, most people believe and praise Mr. Fitzgerald while not knowing that he was a plagiarist of his wife’s work.
Stories like these are mostly not talked about. Every Women’s Day is about how far we have come but never about how far we still have to go. Have we ever thought about how many women prime ministers we have had in Canada? ONE. What is the point of celebrating Women’s Day if gender equality has yet to be achieved? Yes, women have made groundbreaking achievements, but is it really groundbreaking if women are still not given the same opportunities as men? All of these questions ultimately lead to the answer that gender disparity is real.
Women’s Day is more about how women can cut their hair short, shave their body, and lifting things without a man, but rarely about how women are still fighting for abortion rights, getting basic education, and child marriage. THE IMPORTANT STUFF. Micro feminism (small acts of feminism) is definitely important too, but there is far more important stuff that we should pay more attention to.
Women’s Day should not be hated, but rather, it should be celebrated when change is actually happening.
THE NORTH STAR 