 My name is Nadia Ali, I'm a professor of gender studies here at ZAWS and I'm also a feminist activist with a specific interest in the Middle East. I've been working a lot in relation to Egypt and Iraq and more recently Turkey and the Kurdish conflict. So there's a long history, of course, over 100 years now. I think the first International Women's Day took place in 1909. Initially it was very much linked to a socialist in the United States and then it became the International Socialist Alliance took it up. But in 1914 and 15, International Women's Day was really a day used by women all over Europe to protest against World War I. And since then it's become a tradition and in some countries it's celebrated more officially. So especially the former Soviet Union Eastern Bloc, International Women's Day, it was very, very significant. But also in the countries that I'm working with in the Middle East, International Women's Day was celebrated. But there's sort of a range. In some countries it was more celebration of women. In other countries, especially of course in the sort of socialist countries, there was an emphasis on working women and the rights of working women. Now here I think in Britain and many countries in Europe, I mean many people don't celebrate it and if then it's maybe more celebration of women. But in many global contexts, and again, you know, I'm thinking particularly about the Middle East because this is the area that I know best. It's still a very important day in which women mark their struggles. So one example I can give when Egyptian women shortly after the ousting of Mubarak in 2011, when about 300 Egyptian women went to Tahrir Square to mark International Women's Day and to mark their rights as women, legal rights, social rights, economic rights. They were actually attacked by the same man who was standing side by side with them in the struggle to oust Mubarak. So International Women's Day is still significant because whether anywhere in the world, I mean not just in the Middle East, in Britain, in Europe, in the States, in Asia and Africa, women are still second-class citizens. They're still struggling to have gender-based equality. They're still struggling against gender-based violence in many contexts, particularly in contexts where there's war and conflict. We have high levels of gender-based violence. And so many of us, like myself included, you know, I look at International Women's Day not merely as a kind of celebration or, you know, give me a flower. I mean, it's nice, but it's a day of struggle. And, you know, it's, I guess, similar to Mother's Day where I sometimes feel, well, we should not just, you know, look at the one day. I think it's sort of symbolic, but it's part of the wider struggle. And I think in some places around the world, especially the kind of places that saw us as working with in terms of Africa, the Middle East and Asia, women's rights activists and feminists are marking the day by protesting and protesting, you know, really life issues. But I think we shouldn't forget that here, you know, we are dealing with a gender pay gap. We are also dealing with gender-based violence. So it is a global struggle that clearly women are positioned differently globally depending on where they are and what their class is and their nationality and ethnicity and so on.