Women's Day: The true origin of March 8.

'My name is Betty Harris, I am 37 years old. I got married when I was 23 and that is when I started working in the mines. I work for A. Knowles, of Little Bolton (Lancashire). I pull the coal wagons and work from 5 in the morning until 6 in the evening. I take an hour's break at midday to eat, for which I am given bread and butter, but nothing to drink. I have two children, but they are too young to work. I have pulled the wagon when I was pregnant (...) In the place where I work there are six women and half a dozen boys and girls' . This testimony, from 1842, which seems to be taken from a fragment of the novel 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens, is the faithful reflection of the life of thousands of poor women who, as a result of the industrial revolution, joined the work in factories or mines. Despite the joyful and vindictive connotation that March 8 , International Women's Day , has, what is really remembered every year on this date is the terrible massacre of 120 women workers in a textile factory in New York. The police killed them in a horrific attack during a demonstration in which they were demanding better working conditions .

The story goes back more than 100 years, to March 8, 1875, when hundreds of women workers in a textile factory in New York marched through the streets against low wages, less than half of what men earned. That day ended with 120 women killed by police brutality and led to the workers founding the first women's union.

On March 25, 1911, one of the largest industrial disasters in the United States occurred again. 146 female workers died in a large textile factory fire due to collapses , burns and smoke poisoning, and others committed suicide when there was no escape route.

The owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory were responsible for these deaths. They had sealed the doors to the stairwells and exits to prevent the workers from stealing . This terrible tragedy brought about important changes in labour legislation and led to the birth of the International Women's Textile Workers' Union.

It was not until 1909 that Socialist Women's Day was first celebrated in the United States on February 28. In 1910, the Second International Conference of Socialist Women established March 8 as International Working Women's Day.

Russian feminist Alexandra Kollontai, who among other things achieved women's suffrage and legal divorce, managed to establish March 8 as an official holiday in the Soviet Union. In Spain, it began to be commemorated in 1936 and the UN made this date official in 1975.