Each year on the 8th March we celebrate International Women's Day. Contrary to what is most often associated with Women’s Day; this day is not marked by flowers, chocolates and the showering of compliments to the women in your life. This day, in my view, has two main purposes.


The first goes back more than six hundred years, when women started to stand up against gender inequality. The fight for gender equality began to really develop in the 18th century, in which a growing recognition of the need for freedom and equality emerged, and the early women’s rights movements came about, forming the foundations for many of the later shifts that took place in gender equality. Women began to claim bigger roles in social, economic and political spheres.


The biggest ongoing struggle was the right to vote. As soon as women were granted this right, they gained the power to participate in a democratic society. The first country to grant women the right to vote was New Zealand, in 1893. England played an important role in the pro-suffrage movements, however, women only managed to obtain the right to vote after the First World War (1918). This achievement was directly related to the influence the strength of female labour demonstrated during the war.


In Portugal, the first woman granted the right to vote was Carolina Beatriz Ângelo, a doctor who, as "head of the family" after becoming a widow, took advantage of a loophole in the legislation and on 28 May 1911, became the first woman to vote for the Constituent Assembly. The law stated that all "Portuguese citizens over 21 years of age, who knew how to read and write and were the heads of families" could exercise their right to vote. Carolina Beatriz Ângelo invoked her status as literate and head of her family to enable her to vote. After a court hearing, she was granted the right.


Portugal could have used this to extend the right to vote to all women in the same situation, but instead the Portuguese government rewrote the legislation, excluding women from the right to vote.


Only in 1931 was the right to vote granted to Portuguese women, but even then this right was only for women who were heads of family, not for married women. Women were only universally granted the right to vote in Portugal after the 25th April revolution in 1976.


Nowadays, for Portuguese women, the right to vote seems to be a "normal" or "acquired" right, but it was not so long ago that women were not allowed to vote.


It is scary for me, as a woman, that in such recent times, women were seen as inferior beings without the capacity to make decisions.


This brings us to the second purpose, in my opinion, for the celebration of International Women's Day: reflection.


For me on this day it is essential to reflect, not only as women but as a society, on what happened not long ago and be conscious of what our ancestors did for us, so that today we have the rights that we do, regardless of our gender. We are all human beings, albeit with different biological characteristics, but these differences, in my opinion, should be used as an added value and not as the basis for any kind of discrimination.


Credits: envato elements; Author: IrynaKhabliuk;

The UN officially declared March 8th as "International Women's Day” in 1975. I remind you that at that time in Portugal, married women were still not allowed to vote. It is incredibly important to focus on what we as women have accomplished, not only on this day, but everyday.


Even to this day, societal shifts continue to happen. On 22nd February last year, the women's football team secured for the first time in history, their presence in a World Cup. This only confirmed what has been known for some time, that football, like so many other things, is no longer just a man's sport.


To me, as a woman, but above all as a mother of two girls, I am happy, and more relaxed having been born in a time when we can be free, when we are an asset to society, a society that gives us the freedom of choice, decision and to be happy in our own way; the way in which we desire.


by Claudia Ferreira - Casaiberia Mediação Imobiliária, Lda