International Women's Day, March 8th

March 8th is International Women's Day, and there are several global events planned to observe it:

• National Coalition Against Domestic Violence 2nd Annual National Lobby Day
• NOW's World March of Women 2000
• Global Women's Strike

  The Strike focuses on women's enormous contribution to every society and every economy. Women make the world go round, and raise and look after its entire population; but most of the work we do is unwaged, unrecognised and unvalued. This lack of economic and social recognition is a fundamental sexist injustice which devalues women and everything women do, including keeping our wages 25%-50% below men's. In fact, though a few women are now in highly paid managerial positions, the gap between women's and men's wages is growing. For example, in Mexico since the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), women's wages have dropped from over 70% of men's to just over 50%, a levelling-down policy which governments are trying to extend to the whole of Central and South America. While in the South welfare benefits and other social programmes are largely non-existent, in the North they are being cut, ignoring women's right to such benefits as payment for the caring and other unwaged work we do.

• UNESCO's Women Make the News International Women's Day initiative.