international women's day?

raise your hands - how many of you knew that international women's day took place last thursday? ok. and how many of you knew about it but didn't come across anything to do with it during the day and/or did not seek it out? ok ... that would be me.

i just had a quick look at the iwd website. these are the colours of the day:

and this is what the site says they represent:
"Purple, green and white are the official international women's colours.
The colours originated from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), in the UK in 1908. The colours were said to represent:
- white for purity in public as well as private life
- purple for justice, dignity, self-reverence and self-respect (and representing the women's vote)
- green for hope and new life.
The colours unified the women's movement and emphasised the femininity of the suffragettes. The tricolour of the WSPU soon became a visual cue for the women's movement in other countries. Purple, green and white were worn on International Women's Day and were used for other women's movement banners and posters. More recently, two changes have occured:
- the use of the colour white has more recently been rejected as 'purity' is a controversial issue and attitudes towards the role of 'purity' from women differ greatly
- the introduction of the colour gold representing 'a new dawn' has been commonly used to represent the second wave of feminism."
see more here.

what got me started on all this? an article in ruth gledhill's blog, a blog which joins my links for a while (see right).