International Women’s Day 2027

International Women’s Day 2027 theme

As of October 2026, no 2027 theme has been published on internationalwomensday.com or by UN Women. The IWD website lists International Women’s Day 2027 as Monday 8 March with the hashtag #IWD2027, but has not yet named a campaign theme. Themes are typically announced several months ahead of the day, so check back from late 2026 onwards.

For reference, the 2026 themes (the most recent) were:

• IWD campaign theme 2026: Give To Gain (#GiveToGain). The campaign encouraged people and organisations to give time, money, knowledge, mentoring and opportunities to advance women, on the basis that when we give, we all gain.
• UN Women theme 2026: Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls. UN Women highlighted that women hold only 64 per cent of the legal rights of men worldwide, that in nearly 70 per cent of surveyed countries women face more barriers to justice than men, and that 676 million women and girls live within 50 km of active conflict. The UN commemoration was held on 9 March 2026, alongside the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Two organisations shape the day internationally. The International Women’s Day website runs the annual campaign theme and the #IWD2027 hashtag, and UN Women sets a separate United Nations theme and hosts the official UN commemoration in New York. The 2027 theme has not yet been announced by either organisation. The most recent themes, for 2026, were Give To Gain (#GiveToGain) from the IWD campaign and Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls from UN Women. This page will be updated as soon as a 2027 theme is published.

How to take part

There is no set way to mark International Women’s Day. Some ideas, grouped by setting.

• At work: host a panel or lunchtime talk with women from different parts of the organisation; launch or refresh a mentoring or sponsorship scheme; review and share your gender pay gap data and what you are doing about it; invite a local women’s charity to speak; ask people to wear purple and share why the day matters to them.
• At school or college: run an assembly on the suffragettes and the 1914 London march; set a research project on women who changed a subject area; invite a parent or local professional to talk about her career; pair the day with International Day of Women and Girls in Science in February for a STEM focus.
• At home or in the community: go to a local IWD event or the WOW festival; support a women-led business; donate to a women’s refuge or a charity working on equality; write to or thank a woman who has helped you; read, watch or listen to work by women you have not come across before.
• Online: use #IWD2027 and the campaign hashtag once it is announced, and add your event to the IWD directory so others can find it.

If you are planning for a workplace or school, book speakers and venues early; the first week of March is in high demand.

What happens in the UK

International Women’s Day is not a public holiday in the UK, so most activity happens in and around the normal working and school day. The largest single event is the WOW (Women of the World) London festival at the Southbank Centre, which runs from 5 to 7 March 2027 with three days of talks, workshops, performances, a marketplace and family-friendly events. Day passes cover dozens of sessions; headline conversations are ticketed separately.

Beyond London, you will find IWD programmes at universities, museums, libraries, theatres and city councils across the UK. Many cities hold marches or rallies, women’s networks run breakfasts and panel discussions, and local charities use the day for fundraising. The IWD website keeps a searchable directory of registered events and lets any organisation publish its own, which is the simplest way to find what is happening near you.

In workplaces, IWD is now one of the main dates in the diversity and inclusion calendar, and schools and colleges use it to teach the history of the suffrage movement and to spotlight women in science, engineering, sport and public life.

A short history

The idea of a women’s day grew out of the labour and suffrage movements of the early twentieth century. In 1908, women garment workers marched through New York demanding better conditions and the vote. In 1910, at the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, the German campaigner Clara Zetkin proposed an International Women’s Day, and more than a hundred delegates from 17 countries backed the idea.

The first International Women’s Day was held on 19 March 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, with more than a million women and men attending rallies. Russia first observed the day in 1913, and in 1914 a suffrage march in London went from Bow to Trafalgar Square, with Sylvia Pankhurst arrested on her way to address it. The 8 March date became fixed after women in Russia went on strike for bread and peace on that day in 1917, a protest that helped trigger the February Revolution.

The United Nations marked 1975 as International Women’s Year and officially recognised International Women’s Day in 1977. UN Women has set a theme each year since 1996, and the campaign website internationalwomensday.com launched in 2001 as a free, not-for-profit hub for the day. You can read the full chronology on the IWD timeline and the UN background page.

Related days

International Women’s Day sits within a wider calendar of equality dates. Each of these has its own page on this site.

• International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October, the UN day focused on girls’ rights and opportunities.
• International Equal Pay Day on 18 September, which highlights the gender pay gap.
• International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the start of the 16 Days of Activism.
• World Menopause Day on 18 October, increasingly part of workplace programmes for women’s health.
• International Men’s Day on 19 November, which many organisations pair with IWD in their inclusion calendar.