February 28, 1909 was the first National Working Women's Day, celebrated in the United States after 150,000 women marched in New York City the year before for labour reforms. They wanted to be recognized as valued workers, demanded shorter hours and sanitary working conditions. IWD is a time to reflect on, celebrate and demand the rights of women. Women have fought for this recognition throughout the suffrage movements in the 1900s, where they struggled to gain the right to vote.

Though first instated by the Socialist Party of America, International Women's Day (IWD) was the product of a 1910 Copenhagen conference of working women. 100 women attended from 17 different countries, activists and union leaders, who agreed unanimously to the day.

For me, feminism and the left have always been inextricably linked. The connections between gender oppression and global capitalism, the ties between feminism and anti-colonialism, the fight for social systems that put people first, starting from a place that views our existence as a group effort rather than a wall one climbs alone -- those connections made feminism an obviously progressive movement in my mind.

How could we make long-lasting change for women without a deep commitment towards addressing race and class oppression? How could we uproot the deep foundations of patriarchy that support all of our most powerful institutions without a profound commitment towards supporting the most marginalized?

Shanti Dairiam, Founder of International Women's Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific and Expert Member of the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women , speaks about women's global and local organizing for human rights. Dairiam is the 14th Annual Dame Nita Barrow visiting scholar and distinguished guest at OISE. 

Dairium's lecture wil be: The Promise and the Reality: A World View from Women's Global and Local Organizing. 

The public is welcome to this free, accessible lecture.