'One is not born a woman, one becomes one,' Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Apart from being the 67^th day of the year, the day when the New York Stock Exchange located at 11 Wall Street was founded in 1817 and the day on which Charles de Gaulle Airport was opened in Paris in 1974, 8 March is more universally known as the International Women's Day.

As urban legend has it, women from clothing and textile factories, which were known for the appalling working conditions and low wages, staged a demonstration of protest on 8 March 1857 in New York City. More protests followed on the same date in subsequent years, most notably in 1908 when 15,000 women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay and voting rights. In 1910 the first international women's conference was held in Copenhagen and an International Women's Day was established. The following year, it was marked by over a million people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. On the eve of World War I, women across Europe held peace rallies on 8 March 1913. Demonstrations marking International Women's Day in Russia proved to be the first stage of the Revolution of 1917.

What began as a political event has evolved into a day of global celebration for the economic, political and social achievements of women.

And as life, the world and the like, is one big bubbling melting pot – the emergence of women in horsesport was also a by-product of the many social reforms which give this date a meaning. Indeed, it took many decades before women had equal rights within equestrian sports. Women were first allowed to compete in Dressage at the Olympic Games in 1952, for Jumping they had to wait for the next edition in 1956 and Eventing a whopping 12 years until 1964.

The tardy response to women’s equestrian achievements and hence right to compete side by side with their male counterpart did, subsequently, reveal one very interesting statistic. That on each of these debut participations, in all three disciplines at least one female competitor won an Olympic medal.

In 1952, Lis Hartel (DEN) took individual Dressage silver while Ida von Nagel won a team bronze medal. In 1956, Pat Smythe, already a four-time winner of the Ladies European Jumping Championships took team bronze with Great Britain while in 1964, Lana du Pont was a member of the US Eventing silver medal team.

Interestingly, for Pat Smythe, permission to compete alongside men at the Olympic Games was a one-in-every-four-years occasion as it was not until 1974, two decades later, that the ladies were finally allowed to participate alongside the men at European and World Championships…

Poetic justice of sorts – women are now a force to be reckoned with in horsesport – and were it not for the Nicolas Touzaint (FRA) at the FEI European Eventing Championship – we would have been witness in 2007 to an all female European domination in the three Olympic disciplines, food for thought indeed…

More generally in the world of sport, 8 March 2008 marks the kick-off of the Fourth IOC World Conference on Women and Sport in Jordan. Under the motto “Sport as a vehicle for social change”, the participants of the conference will debate and determine, amongst other subjects, how female athletes can serve as role models for young girls, how more women might take part in coaching and officiating, how to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic through sport, and how culture determines women’s access to sport. Keynote speakers include former top athletes, representatives from governments, businesses, UN agencies, media and academics.