Last Friday, March 8 was International Women’s Day. The day was created in 1910 by Clara Zetkin at the second International Conference of Working Women, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

However, the United Nations did not officially celebrate the day until 1975.

Every year after that, the United Nations set a theme for International Women’s Day. This year’s theme was “A Promise is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence Against Women.”

Some past themes include “Empower Rural Women, End Poverty and Hunger,” “Equal Access to Education, Training, and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women,” and “Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress for All.”

International Women’s Day has drawn in the involvement of several feminist groups, yet has resulted in a variety of different opinions from both men and women.

Sophomore Lina Wu sees the day as being beneficial to women.

“I think it’s great because more female empowerment for everybody,” Wu said. “Girls need to learn how to love themselves. Let’s all be secure.”

On the other hand, freshman Daniel Schmuckler thinks that the necessity of such a day is distressing.

“I await the day when we don’t need an International Women’s Day,” Schmuckler said. “Given that 50 percent of the population [is women], I think it’s a pretty big problem that we do need an International Women’s Day.”

The year 2017 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, and a huge International Women’s Day celebration is scheduled for March 8 of that year.

Find out more about the 2013 celebration at http://www.internationalwomensday.com/