Why celebrate International Women’s Day?
What is International Women's Day and why should we celebrate it?
By 
Psychologies
- Globally, 10 million more girls are out of school than boys and women account for nearly two thirds of the world’s 780 million people who cannot read. (1)
- One in three women worldwide experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime. (2)
- In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the US, intimate partner violence accounts for between 40 and 70 per cent of female murder victims. (6)
- Approximately 140 million girls and women in the world have suffered female genital mutilation/cutting. (6)
- Over 40 years after the Equal Pay Act came into force in the UK, women still face a 15 per cent gender pay gap in their earnings compared to men’s and experience one of the highest pay gaps in the EU, meaning effectively, from 7 November each year women stop earning and work for free until the end of the year, while men continue to earn. (3)
- Worldwide women held 20 per cent of the seats across all houses of parliament (upper and lower) by the end of 2012.(4) The UK is ranked joint 58th in the world with regards to the number of women in national parliaments, and at the current rate of progress we would have to wait more than 150 years before seeing an equal number of women and men elected to English local councils. (5)
