2024 International Women’s Day: Who are the most powerful women in the United States?

International Women’s Day is just days away, with communities worldwide preparing their festivities set for March 8th. However, in the United States, the day does not hold the same importance it does in many other countries.

In Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Eritrea, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos (women only), Madagascar, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Zambia, among others, International Women’s Day has been declared a public holiday in the country.

A short history of International Women’s Day

The holiday’s origin can be traced to protests led by the Socialist Party of America in New York City in 1909. The demonstrations were planned a year after garment workers, the majority of whom were women, led a strike demanding better conditions.

The following year, the celebrations reached Europe. At a meeting of the Socialist International, Women’s Day was established “to honour the movement for women’s rights and to build support for achieving universal suffrage for women.”

Later, the date became a rallying cry for women in Russia who were fed up with the death and destruction World War I brought to their society. Many women used the rallying cry of “Bread and Peace,” and just a few days after the massive wave of protests, “the Czar abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote.”

The inclusion of women in political life

Much of the early moments that led to the recognition of International Women’s Day were aims to increase women’s participation in the political bodies that governed their lives. Labor struggles shed light on the important economic role played by women who fight for fair and safe working conditions. Additionally, those to legalize women’s suffrage served to integrate women as full members of the public with the right to voice their opposition or support at the ballot box. Women’s suffrage also normalized, to a greater extent, the place of women in political office, and although in the US a woman have never been elected president, they have occupied some of the highest offices in the country.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat from California, made history as the first woman to serve as Vice President. Her fellow state’s woman, Representative Nancy Pelosi became the first woman to serve as Speaker of the House —a role she held from 2027 to 2023 and 2019 to 2023.

At the Supreme Court, four of the nine Justices are women, representing a range of ideological perspectives: Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In he 117th Congress of the House of Representatives, a record 27 percent of seats belong to Congresswoman. However, the statistics obfuscate the inequality in gender representation between the parties. The percentage of women in the Democratic caucus in the House is 40 percent, whereas in the Republican caucus, the percentage is only 14 percent. In the Senate, the situation is worse for both parties. A quarter of the Senate’s 100 members are woman, of which 15 are Democrats (with Kirsten Sinema, an independent caucusing with the party), and nine Republicans.

While, acknowledging the great power that women hold in US political life, it is critical to remember that for many feminists, International Women’s Day is a lot more than lauding women in centers of power. The holiday for those who see the primary objective of feminism to fight for a world where all people are treated equally regardless of their gender. While ‘shattering the glass ceiling’ recognizes women who succeed in a “man’s world,” there are billions of women who wish to live lives free from discrimination and harassment who are not served because a few women are able to reach the upper echelons of power in both the public and private sectors. The struggle for women to be treated as full and equal participants in society, is connected to all other struggles for economic, gender-based, and racial justice. And, those fights, are taking place very far away from the halls of power we often look to as those responsible for righting the injustices of the past and enacting laws that allow for a just future.