The cultural and political achievements of women across the world were celebrated on the March 8 as part of International Women’s Day, which has its origins in America in 1909. Michael Ward photographed one of the earliest mass demonstrations organised for International Women’s Day in London in 1974. The image above, taken at the head of the march, shows a banner depicting the raised, clenched fist inside a Venus symbol. In the preceding years the Women’s Liberation Movement was gathering momentum in Britain; the feminist publication Spare Rib published its first edition in June 1972, the first Rape Crisis centre opened in 1973 and the National Women’s Aid Federation formed in 1974. (The year after this demonstration, the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act would become a

Source: The Times March 27, 2021 01:30 UTC