The first Working Women’s Day was held in 1909, here in the U.S. The Working Women’s Commission of the Socialist Party of America had persuaded the party as a whole to adopt February 28 of that year as a day of reflection and celebration.

The following year, the Second International Conference of Working Women, organized by the Socialist International (then the main body unifying self-described socialists and communists), unanimously adopted March 18 as the date for IWWD, with the first formal celebration to take place around the world the following year.

The first IWWD events were enormously successful, with women in over 100 countries participating in events. Small towns and large cities saw IWWD festivals, rallies and meetings; in many places, men chose to stay home and take care of children or perform responsibilities around the house to allow women to participate.

In 1913, IWWD was formally moved to March 8, where it remains to this day.

During the 1930s, IWWD events began to wane, eventually becoming small and almost unnoticeable affairs by the end of the Second World War. With the rise of the feminist movements in the 1960s, March 8 was “revived” as “International Women’s Day” —  the class character of the celebration purged from its modern incarnation.

While many self-described socialist and communist organizations have went along with this removal of class from the day’s celebrations (including its originator, the Socialist Party), the Workers Party continues to honor IWWD as it was originally and rightly intended: as a day to honor working-class women and celebrate their central role in the struggle to defeat capitalist rule and build a classless society.

While all women continue to suffer from forms of sexism and oppression, those forms — and their intensity — vary greatly based on class. While the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s may have cracked the “glass ceiling” for women from capitalist and “middle class” backgrounds, the only real benefit working women got from it was the “right” to not be sexually harassed or called a “b***h” on the job ... maybe.

Because of this, the real fight against sexism and women’s oppression continues as an integral and necessary part of the class struggle for working people’s liberation.