Brilio.net/en - Surely youve seen todays Google Doodle celebrating International Womens Day, or simply IWD, which is celebrated each year on March 8. So, what its all about?
The International Womens Day is a worldwide event dedicated to women all around the globe for their achievements, from political, science, art, culture, sport, journalism, technology, all the way to social while calling fo gender equality. This special day, which has been recognized since the early 1990s, has marked womens predicaments and achievements for more than a century but is now looking forward to another 15 years to achieve the world's gender equality goals.
This years theme
Image via UN Women/Ryan Brown
The 2016 theme for United Nation-backed celebration is Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality, and it seeks to accelerate the 2030 Agenda, which promotes womens empowerment as a powerhouse of global sustainability plans. It also focuses on reducing poverty, hunger, disease and, of course, gender equality.
This years IWD will equally focus on new commitments under UN Womens Step It Up initiative, and other existing commitments on gender equality, womens empowerment and womens human rights in order to concretely achieve the sustainability goals over the coming years.
Each year has given focus to women's status around the globe, since the United Nations first began the commemoration on March 8th in 1975, and ...
Why was it set up?
Image viaRex Features
In the time when the first IWD began, women were demanding to be given the right to vote (which they received in Britain in 1918 but just last year in Saudi Arabia), to hold public office and to be given equal employment rights as men.
Today, when only a fifth of parliamentary seats in the UK are held by women and only 19 heads of state out of a possible 196 are women (only seven more women than 20 years ago) there are still many milestones to be reached. The number of female cabinet ministers has at least tripled between 1994 and 2014, but remains low compared to men, at only 17 %.
Imagevia independent
In Indonesia, women make up over half of the countrys population, yet their participation and influence in politics and the government is minimal. Women are likewise diminished in Indonesias parliament: at the national, regional, provincial and district levels.
Despite the increase in the number of female candidates in the parliamentary elections held in Indonesia on April 9, 2014, the country still has a lot of works to do in order to meet its target of increasing women's representation in the 560-seat of parliament for the 2014-2019 period.
Of 6,607 legislative candidates racing for the House of Representatives (DPR) seats in the elections, some 37% or 2,467 were women, up from 30% in the legislative elections in 2009.
Why its still needed?
Turkish students by globalfundforwomen
Yes, womens influences are starting to be recognized around the globe, but we still have a lot of work to do. Maybe its not only about the surrounding political office and the pay gap (even though those twos are still sparking problems in many countries); there is also increasing awareness of the abuse women suffer at the hands of others.
An estimated 120 million girls and women under the age of 20 have been subjected to forced sexual intercourse or other forced sexual acts. Its around 10% of women population on Earth. And thats only the reported incidents.
Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of a billion more women are in the global workforce today than a decade ago, but they are only paid with the same amount of wage the men earned in 2006, according to the World Economic Forum. And one in 10 married women is not consulted by their husbands on how their earnings will be spent.
The story behind the Google Doodle
Image by google
This years International Womens Day Google Doodle is featuring women and girls around the word who start their sentences: One day I will..., celebrating their dreams and ambitions.
Google visited 13 countries and spoke to 337 women to create the video. From toddlers to grandmas, the women in San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Lagos, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin, London, Paris, Jakarta, Bangkok, New Delhi and Tokyo, possess their own unique personality. Every city brought more One day I wills voice to form new hopes and dreams representing all the women in the world.
Their aspirations varied, from the very personal swim with pigs in the Bahamas to the more global give a voice to those who cant speak and everything in between. As far as we know, Its not always easy to put into words the things you want to achieve. When asked, they tend to pause for a while but once their pens (or fingers) reach the papers or screens, floods of inspiration is released.
Inspired already? So its your turn to share your own aspirations. Just turn to Twitter with the hashtag #OneDayIWill.