Thanks to the efforts of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, International Women’s Day, which marks the 100th anniversary this year, finally gets a credible, proper observation from the United States.
Today, governments and non-profit organizations around the world, mark the 100th anniversary of  International Women’s Day, begun in 1911, inspired by the work of German socialist and  feminist Clara Zeitkin, a former member of the German Reichstag, who died in exile in Moscow in 1933. It was discrimination against women that brought out over one million women–and men–from the socialist movement onto the streets of Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on March 19, 1911 that began this observation.
Many Russian women activists and feminists, who participated in the Russian revolution in 1917 played a key role in establishing observation of International Women’s Day in the Soviet Bloc countries that eventually spread to countries outside the Eastern Bloc. In 1975, during the UN Year of Women, International Women’s Day was designated to be observed on March 8.
As an American woman feminist, who has worked in a dozen countries and traveled to at least 40 countries during my lifetime, I have spent many International Womens’ Days abroad in former communist countries that celebrate this day to great fanfare as a tribute to the political and economic advances sought and achieved by women around the world. But most Americans know very little about International Women’s Day and our government has rarely taken a considerable moment to recognize the achievements of women in America and around the world on this day, but that has changed dramatically with the election of President Barack Obama.
To his credit, President Obama declared March to be National Women’s History Month and recognized the significance of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day in his proclamation, but more importantly he spelled out that empowering women and girls is a policy priority:
My Administration has elevated the rights of women and girls abroad as a critical aspect of our foreign and national security policy. Empowering women across the globe is not simply the right thing to do, it is also smart foreign policy. This knowledge is reflected in the National Security Strategy of the United States, which recognizes that countries are more peaceful and prosperous when their female citizens enjoy equal rights, equal voices, and equal opportunities.
His astute nomination of Hillary Clinton to be the nation’s top diplomat has been the driving force behind the Administration’s elevated priority of supporting women and girls, especially abroad. Clinton, who declared in Beijing in 1995 as then-First Lady of the U.S. that “Human Rights are Women’s Rights, and Women’s Rights are Human Rights”–galvanized women across the globe and has enabled Clinton to become argubly the foremost powerful advocate on behalf of women and girls in the world today.
I happened to be working in Haiti and later in The Gambia when Clinton made THE speech in Beijing and I will never forget how enthralled and enthusiastic women’s reactions were to it around the world. It was an electrifying moment.
This week, Clinton, as Secretary of State, is leveraging her position and power to the maximum by putting substance to this paradigm-shifting three-pronged agenda.
(Compare this year’s observation to one just seven years ago, as then-president George W. Bush’s actions amid his $1.5 billion “Healthy Marriage Initiative” were protested on International Women’s Day.)
Yesterday, at the State Department she  announced a new program entitled  “100 Years, 100 Women, Empowering Women and Girls Through International Exchanges” that brought together 92 women from six different continents to the State Department, a first of 26 similar events that will take place over the coming year. These women will travel the U.S. sharing their experiences, while learning about America. Today, she and First Lady Michelle Obama, presided over the 2011 International Women of Courage Awards ceremony  recognizing the courage and work of 10 significant women, including Roza Otunbayeva, the first woman President of the Kyrgyz Republic and of a Central Asian state.
The third leg of this comprehensive policy includes a public-private partnership with Goldman Sachs called “10,000 Women” which aims to train 10,000 underserved women around the world with business and management education through a five-year investment. Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and CEO of Goldman, announced at the State Department ceremony today that its program would achieve education of 5,000 women by summer.
Clinton, who has said publicly on many occasions that she will leave government service at the end of Obama’s first term to work on advancing the rights and interests of women and girls, spells out her vision and goals in comments made yesterday:
So for me, investing in women and girls is smart. It pays off. It’s not only the right thing to do – and I see some heads nodding – because you’ve seen the differences in the lives around you, in your own life as to what it means for someone to believe in a girl or a woman and to give her the tools to make the most out of her own life. But it’s also true that this is important if you want to alleviate hunger – you teach women, who are most of the farmers in the world how to get more harvest out of their hard work. If you want to alleviate poverty, you give women access to credit and opportunities to actually start to generate income for themselves and their families. And you have been working in these and so many areas. You are established and emerging leaders from 92 countries. You are leaders from the academic world, from business, from civil society, from the media. You are pioneers and you are fearless supporters of those who need a champion.
Obama and Clinton’s leadership is critical to adopting policies and programs that will effectively empower women and girls–advancing their human rights–will stabilize transitional democracies and by providing education and job opportunities to women, will help lift families and communities out of poverty. Across the board today in international development funding agencies, the professionals know that by prioritizing the empowerment of women and girls, the investment will pay off exponential dividends in creating more stable societies and dynamic economies. Countries can not achieve a good standard of living, by leaving more than 50 percent of their population behind. Much work remains to be done.
Former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, said today that there has been “remarkable progress” since International Women’s Day was first celebrated a century ago. Bachelet, the new director of UN Women, the UN’s agency for gender equality and empowerment of women, which was officially launched in January this year, adds that gender equality remains a distant goal because women still suffer widespread discrimination and lack political and economic clout.
According to Clinton, today, 850 million women and girls are alive between the ages of 10 and 24 years old, the largest generation of women in the history of our civilization. Hillary Clinton, who declared women’s rights are human rights 16 years ago in Beijing, has miles to go before she leaves this important work to others.
Happy International Women’s Day!
Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.