International Women’s Day: Images honoring women’s work

On March 8, people around the world celebrate International Women’s Day with events about gender equity in Ghana, free museum entry for women in Italy, and “A Day Without a Woman” strikes in the United States and beyond.

Part of this year’s theme is women in the changing world of work. While much has changed since the first women’s day event in 1909 in New York, my colleague Ruth Levine says three aspects of women’s work persist: first, women work in certain fields and men in others; second, women work more but earn less than men, in part because they often work in the informal economy or as paid and unpaid caregivers; and third, women’s productive and reproductive lives are linked.

Photographs from our Images of Empowerment collection show the connections between women’s work, their families, and access to reproductive health care information and services. They highlight that women around the world share common aspirations to earn a living, have control over whether and when to have a family, and be able to care for their loved ones.

As you celebrate International Women’s Day, I hope these photographs bring you closer to the women they show in Colombia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand and Uganda. The individuals in the photographs include members of Women in Informal Employment: Organizing and Globalizing (WIEGO), a Hewlett Foundation grantee, that works to improve the lives of informal workers. They also show women and children who benefit from the health and social services of other Hewlett grantees like Tostan and IntraHealth.

The collection was created with support from Hewlett Foundation’s Helena Choi and Margot Fahnestock and includes more than 1000 photographs taken by Jonathan Torgovnik, Paula Bronstein and Juan Arredondo of Reportage by Getty Images. They are openly-licensed and free for non-commercial use. Please use them — and share your thoughts with us on Twitter.