International Women’s Day 2023: The stereotype that pink is for girls and blue is for boys just isn’t true when it comes to international representation Women’s Day. The global occasion celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women is actually represented by three colours: purple, green and white.
According to the International Women’s Day (IWD) website, purple, green and white are the colors of International Women’s Day. The colors originated from the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in the United Kingdom in 1908. purple is a symbol of justice and dignity; green symbolizes hope; White represents purity.
The WSPU was a militant wing of the British suffrage movement and was founded in Manchester in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst. The WSPU, along with the more conservative National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), sought the right to vote for women in a country that had explicitly denied women’s suffrage in 1832.
In the United States, a combination of purple, white, and gold was used by the National Woman’s Party. The organization described the meaning of these colors in a newsletter published on December 6, 1913, “Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving perseverance to a cause. white, the symbol of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; And gold, the color of light and life, is like the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unshakable.
The color white often found its place in the flags of the suffrage movement. Feminists were often portrayed as masculine and ugly by anti-feminists. To counter that anti-suffrage media image, suffragettes paraded in dresses that were often all white, with suffragettes. These white dresses symbolized the femininity and purity of the suffrage cause.
Wearing purple on this day shows that you are joining other women around the world in solidarity to celebrate this special day which also serves as a call to action to accelerate gender equality.
