Happy International Women’s Day Everyone! Today, on International Women’s Day, Kailasha Foundation wants to take a moment to thank all the amazing women who’ve made a difference, both on and off the air, in ways big and small. To mark International Women’s Day, we give you an IQ booster shot with all the facts you may never have known about women.

What is International Women’s Day?

International Women’s Day, originally called International Working Women’s Day, and is celebrated on March 8th every year. Started in the United States as a social movement to bring greater awareness and address women’s rights, in many countries it continues to be acknowledged as a national holiday. In different parts of the world, the focus ranges from a celebration of respect and love towards women to women’s economic, political, and social achievements. In some countries, the political and human rights aspect designated by the United Nations is most dominant, and political and social awareness of the struggles of women are brought to light.

Why purple ribbons?

Many people celebrate the day by wearing purple ribbons. This tradition was started as a way to show solidarity for women’s rights, and symbolizes the struggle of women around the world for gender equality.

Image Source – Internet

The holiday was first celebrated in 1911 when women in the United States began to demand their rights. Among these were the right to vote, hold public office, and the fight against sex discrimination. The movement spread consequently to Europe and the Soviet Union, and today encompasses many parts of the globe.

How is it celebrated today?

In many countries, it is customary for men to give the women in their lives flowers and small gifts. In Bulgaria and Romania, it is observed as an equivalent of Mother’s Day. Gifts of yellow mimosas and chocolates are common in Russia and Albania, and in Italy, yellow mimosas are also given to honor women on this day. Many governments and women’s organizations also organize special events to celebrate the holiday. On this day women around the world come together to overcome all boundaries in the struggle for women’s rights. Each year there is a uniting theme which focuses on an aspect of the women’s movement. International Women’s Day is also an official holiday in 27 countries including Afghanistan, Belarus, Cambodia, Cuba, Russia and Uganda.

Image Source – Internet

This year’s theme to be bold for change to help forge a better working world – a more gender inclusive world

What’s Special in India this women’s day?

On the lines of Australian Women’s Big Bash Cricket League and Women’s Cricket Super League London, the first women’s cricket league in India will be launched today for the International Women’s Day. India’s first women’s cricket league is an attempt to give women cricket and women cricketers’ equal opportunities in the country and bring them to the equivalent of male cricketers.

Now, we are putting some important & interesting facts about women in this world. We need to remind the rest of the world how remarkable women are and the hardship they still encounter all over the world.  We are sure that you will be completely surprised after knowing them.

1. Women provide 66% of the work, produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income and own less than 2% of the property. Women produce HALF the world’s food but own only one percent of its farmland.
2. The two highest IQs ever recorded on a standard test both belong to women but Only 48 women have been awarded Nobel Prizes compared with 822 men. Car heaters, fire escapes, dishwashers, circular saws, chocolate chip cookies and rectangular bottomed paper bags were all invented by women.
3. Around the world, women are paid less than men, in most countries earning on average 60%-75% of men’s wages (World Bank Gender Data Portal, 2015). The UN Women Report from 2015showed that, despite women working longer hours than men when both paid and unpaid work is taken into consideration, women still earn an average of 24 percent less than men do worldwide. This wage gap is by far the worst in South Asia, where women earn 33 percent less than men.
4. Fifty-eight percent of college graduates are women, and this increased percentage of educated women has been directly tied to economic growth worldwide— and faster economic growth at that. Among the 34 countries that participate in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, (OECD), more education for women and girls accounts for 50 percent of their economic growth over the past 50 years.

5. As of 2014, there were 16 million women living with HIV, meaning 50 percent of all adults with HIV are women. It’s not uncommon for women living with HIV to experience violence simply because of their HIV status. The UN reports that at least 14 countries force HIV positive women into involuntary abortions and sterilizations.
6. While the percentage of women married before the age of 18 has dropped in North Africa and the Middle East by about 50 percent in the last 30 years, globally speaking, one in four women alive today were child brides.
7. This probably comes as no surprise, but women still spend more time on housework and childcare than men do. The UN reports that women spend one to three hours more on housework than men, two to 10 times the amount of time caring for children and the elderly, and one to four hours less per day on economic market activities. In fact, in the European Union, 25 percent of women say this is why they’re not active in the labor force, whereas only three percent of men can say the same.
8. Despite the UN’s Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women back in 1993, currently,1 in 3 women worldwide are victims of physical or sexual violence — and it’s usually at the hands of an intimate partner.
9. Despite the fact that women outpace men in both secondary and higher education, unemployment rates disproportionately affect women worldwide. As of 2013, the global female employment-to-population ratio was only 47.1 percent. Conversely, for men, that percentage was 72.2.
10. UNICEF recently reported that over 500 million women and girls worldwide don’t have access to a private, sanitary space where they can tend to their menstrual hygiene. That’s half a billion women and girls across the globe who aren’t granted the basic necessity of a clean, safe space to deal with their periods.
11. Only 22 of Earth’s 197 countries can say they have women serving as heads of state. In January 2015, only 17% of government ministers globally were women (Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2015). A mere 14 percent of top executive positions in Fortune 500 companies are held by women. Only 24 of those companies have female CEOs.
12. Though we’ve seen progress where Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is concerned, (Nigeria banned the practice in May of 2015), the fact remains that 200 million women and girls alive today have experienced FGM; some during their infancy, but almost all by the age of 15.
13. As of 2013, child marriage is more likely to kill girls in the developing world than war, AIDS, tuberculosis, or any other cause of death. In fact, complications from pregnancy and childbirth is the number one killer among girls ages 15 to 19 in the developing world.
14. According to UNICEF, approximately 31 million girls of primary school age, and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age, were not in school in 2013. That means an estimated 63 million young girls worldwide are out of school.

15. An EU survey showed that 34% of women with a health problem or disability had experienced violence by a partner in their lifetime, compared to 19% percent of women without a health problem or disability (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2014).
16. Women are more likely than men to work in informal employment. In South Asia, over 80% of women in non-agricultural jobs are in informal employment. In sub-Saharan Africa, the figure is 74%, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is 54% (UN Women, 2015).
17. Women bear disproportionate caring responsibility for children, the elderly and the sick, spending as much as ten times more time a day on unpaid care work than men, according to the World Bank.
18. Around the world, there are around 106 males born for every 100 females but because women tend to live longer than men, the percentage of women increases with age. There are only 79 men aged over 65 per 100 women. Qatar has the highest male ratio, with 2.87 males per female. The Northern Mariana Islands have the highest female ratio with only 0.77 males per female. 
19. Over a third of women have experienced physical/sexual violence by a partner and/or sexual violence by a non-partner in their lifetime. Every 90 seconds somewhere in the world, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth. Women suffer four times as many headaches as men, which is thought to be due to fluctuations in Hormones.
20. Women speak about 20,000 words a day on average. Men speak only 7,000 words a day. The average woman owns more than 25 pairs of shoes. Women spend nearly ONE Year of their lives deciding what to wear. The average amount of time a woman can keep a secret is 47 hours and 15 minutes. Women Blink 19 times per minute, compared to 11 for Men.

Once again, Kailasha Foundation wishes you all Happy Women’s Day. We are committed to make the world a better place for our half population. We provide free learning & guidance to everyone in this world. Education for all because Education cannot wait.

Happy to Help. Visit us at kfdn.org.in

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day