International Women's Day: programming for ERGs services for ERGs.

International Women's Day is older than most of the modern DEI calendar. It traces to 1909 in New York and the 1910 International Socialist Women's Conference in Copenhagen, and to garment workers organizing for shorter hours, better pay, and the right to vote. It became a UN-recognized day in 1977. That origin matters: the day was built around labor and economic power, not greeting cards, and ERG programming that honors that lineage lands harder than another panel of senior women.

The 2026 data still tracks the original fight. The US Census and BLS put the unadjusted gender pay gap around 16 ‘17 cents on the dollar; the gap widens substantially for Black, Latina, and Native women per the National Women's Law Center's annual analysis. McKinsey and LeanIn's “Women in the Workplace” report has tracked the “broken rung” from individual contributor to manager for ten years running, and ERG leaders use March 8 to put that data on the table inside their own company — not just industry-wide.

International Women's Day is also genuinely global. It's a national holiday in dozens of countries, including parts of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Cuba, and Vietnam. If the company has offices outside the US, the strongest move is to let local Women's ERG chapters own the day and have HQ amplify, rather than centralizing into a US-themed broadcast. The day reads as authentic when the voices change region to region.