Demonstrations take place in many places on International Women’s Day.
© bildgehege/Imago
International Women’s Day takes place on March 8th. These 10 women made history as pioneers and rulers.
Berlin – As early as March 1911, around one million women took to the streets in Germany, Denmark, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. On International Women’s Day*, you not only fought for the right to vote, I also fought for better working conditions and legal abortions.
During the First World War and under the Nazi dictatorship, the “socialist” holiday was banned, but was celebrated again from the late 1960s, especially by the women’s and peace movements. In 2019, Berlin was the only German federal state to introduce International Women’s Day* as a public holiday.
On the occasion of the action day, it is worth taking a look into the past. Centuries ago, women wrote history as rulers and changed the world – in many cases without becoming particularly famous.
1. Clara Zetkin: The Socialist
The writer and politician was instrumental in founding the Socialist International in 1889. From 1920 to 1933 Zetkin was a member of the Reichstag for the KPD. She came up with the programmatic sentence: “Only in a socialist society will women, like workers, be able to fully enjoy their rights.” At the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen on August 27, 1910, she proposed an International Women’s Day, which was held the following year was introduced in Germany.
2. Alice Salomon: The social reformer
At the age of 21, Alice Salomon was involved in social aid work in the girls’ and women’s groups, partly because she was denied a teacher’s training course. In 1909 she was admitted to the course and completed it as a Dr. phil. away. She later took on positions such as deputy chairman of the Federation of German Women’s Associations. In 1929 she founded the International Association of Schools of Social Work. Although emigration to the USA according to documents stopped her career, in 1945 she became honorary president of the International Women’s Federation and of the International Association for Schools of Social Work, which she founded in 1929
3. Hatshepsut: The pharaoh
Hatshepsut took over after the death of her husband Pharaoh Thutmose II in 1479 BC. on the one hand the regency for the underage son, on the other hand also the government of Upper and Lower Egypt. Her two-decade tenure was characterized by peace and a strong economy, as dw.de explains. Her successor tried to make all evidence of the first female pharaoh disappear.
4. Catherine II: The general
After Catherine II seized power, she succeeded her unloved husband as Tsarina of Russia. She brought the entire Russian Empire under her state authority, introduced an administration, reformed the education system and led campaigns in Eastern Europe. She was the only ruler to be nicknamed “the Great”. She set up an administration for the empire and reformed the educational system.
5. Suzanne Lenglen: The tennis star
100 years ago, tennis was seen as an exclusive, expensive sport much more than it is today. The rules were strict and the cost of the hobby was high. In 1910, Suzanne Lenglen held a tennis racket in her hand for the first time. She rose to prominence within a few years as the world’s first female tennis star, breaking down the barriers and formalities of the sport.
6. Ada Lovelace: The Programmer
An English mathematician and writer, Ada Lovelace worked with Charles Babbage on his early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Almost a century before the first computers as we know them were built, she already recognized that computers could process more than numbers. However, the idea did not catch on during her lifetime.
7. Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkov: The Cosmonaut
Valentina Tereshkova embarked on June 16, 1963 aboard Vostok 6 for a nearly three-day voyage into space. The icon of Soviet space travel should set off unaccompanied before the USA send a woman into space. The trained textile worker from Yaroslavl Oblast turns 85 on March 6, two days before International Women’s Day.
8. Elizabeth I: The Peacemaker
At the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign, the British Empire was in turmoil. But it ended the religious war between Protestants and Catholics. It was under her reign that the golden age began, producing artists like Shakespeare and giving the Empire a victory against the Spanish Armada.
9. Joan of Arc: The Warrior
When the Hundred Years’ War between England and France took place in 1348, the 13-year-old farmer’s daughter Johanna is said to have received a vision for the first time. At the request of saints, she went to war against the English. But she was taken prisoner by the English, burned as a heretic and ultimately celebrated as a saint and national heroine.
10. Rosa Parks: The human rights activist
Rosa Parks helped end state discrimination against black people in the United States. When asked to stand up for a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabana on December 1, 1955, she refused. She was arrested and sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, which benefited Martin Luther King’s civil rights movement. (Tanja Koch) *hna.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
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