CBC Digital Archives

1982: Celebrating International Women's Day

International Women's Day was first celebrated in 1910, but it wasn't until the 1970s that it became widely commemorated in Canada. And although the day becomes more popular each year, it's still "an ongoing struggle" to get many women interested in women's rights, explains Canadian feminist Mariana Valverde in this 1982 CBC-TV interview with Hana Gartner. "We have to struggle for our own rights," Valverde stresses, noting that in the workplace women are typically the last hired, first fired, and are only earning 60 per cent of what men earn in 1982.
• According to the United Nations, the idea of an international day to celebrate women's achievements was first proposed in 1910 at a meeting of Socialist International in Copenhagen. International Women's Day was marked for the first time on March 19, 1911. In the years following the date moved around but was generally observed around March 8.
 

• Since 1965, International Women's Day has been a national holiday in Russia.

• The UN designated 1975 as International Women's Year. Two years later, it passed a resolution calling on each member nation to choose a day to be observed for women's rights. According to Status of Women Canada, March 8 became Canada's official International Women's Day. By 2010 the day was the centrepiece of International Women's Week, a time to promote women's equality with speeches, marches, concerts and other events.

Medium: Television
Program: Take 30
Broadcast Date: March 8, 1982
Guest(s): Mariana Valverde
Reporter: Hana Gartner
Duration: 5:20

Last updated: March 5, 2012

Page consulted on February 20, 2013

All Clips from this Topic

Related Content

The Montreal Massacre

For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal's École Poly...

1989: Gunman massacres 14 women at Montreal's...

An enraged man enters a Montreal university and opens fire on female engineering students.

1971: Germaine Greer on The Female Eunuch

In a combative TV interview, the famous feminist defends some of the ideas in her best-selling...

Equality First: The Royal Commission on the S...

The Royal Commission on the Status of Women, called by Prime Minister Pearson in February 1967...

1989: May Day in the era of perestroika

In 1989 Moscow's May Day parade is a mass display of balloons and ribbons instead of weapons.

Fumbles and Stumbles: Great Election Gaffes

Call it a blunder, a slip-up, a goof or a gaffe, but if it happens on the campaign trail it ca...