As women around the world are celebrated and honored in observance of International Women's Day, some of the world's leaders are urging continued progress in the matters of equality between the sexes.
At the UN's commemoration of the IWD on Friday, several key speakers spoke out against long standing travesties against women, and encouraged the continuation of steps made to not only protect women, but to promote equality in the home, the work place, the political arena, and society as a whole.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called gender equality "the great unfinished business of the 21st century", saying "no country in the world, including my own, the United States, has achieved full participation, and women and girls still comprise the majority of the world's unhealthy, unfed, and unpaid."
Clinton continued, saying gender equality was a portent of advancement for the species.
"The more data that we have, the more we find what we knew in our hearts was true all along: when women and girls thrive, entire societies thrive. Just as women's rights are human rights, women's progress is human progress," Clinton said.
John W. Ashe, President of the 68th UN General Assembly, called men and boys to stand up and speak out for women's equality, as "in households and communities, in governments and businesses, at the national and international levels, men are often the decision makers. They control access to all manner of resources, from land to information, from money to influence. The power men wield can tip the balance either way in the struggle for gender equality."
The commemoration was held on the eve of the 58th Session of the Commission on the Status, set to kick off on March 10.
IWD was born in the early days of the struggle for women's rights, both in the US and abroad. First observed in the US in 1909, Clara Zetkin presented the idea of an international women's day to the second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen. Since then, its political and social impacts have been transformed in various countries; some observe it as a day for men to honor and shower love on the women in their lives, while other countries hold rallies and campaigns in order to continue the fight for equality.