International Women’s Day 2024: Why are the colours purple, green, and white associated with this day?

Colours of Women’s Day: Colour purple, green, and white are now the colours of Women’s Day. Most women struggled to make peace with the colour pink because society gave it an inherent connotation of feminine, and girly with further implications of being soft, sensitive, sweet, polite, and submissive. It required unlearning and relearning to actually own the colour and express their liking of it without feeling the judgement of getting perceived as ‘girly’ because let’s be real womanhood goes beyond being a girl, and our gender should not be assumed with our sex. 

Today, the colours purple, green, and white have become a metaphor signifying certain qualities women embody and seek in this world. Keep reading to explore the meaning behind these colours, and their significance in the sphere of feminism and womanhood.    

Colours for International Women’s Day 2024

Three colours have been associated with Women's Day i.e. Purple, Green and White, each holding their individual significance and meaning. Purple is used to signify justice, dignity, and loyalty to the cause that women are fighting. Hope is symbolised with the use of green, while white stands for purity. 

Delving a little into the history to make sense of our present, it is important to note that the colours were first used in the early 20th century during the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, where the women while marching and protesting for their rights to vote used purple, green and white.  

In a book by Kenneth Florey, “Women’s Suffrage Memorabilia: An Illustrated Historical Study” she wrote the suffragettes used these colours to represent different things, Purple for "the royal blood that flows in the veins of every suffragette", green for the hope and white for purity. 

The colour purple today also finds its significance due to Alice Walker, an American novelist, and the author of ‘The Color Purple’ where the colour was used to represent womanhood, and women’s relationships with each other, platonic and romantic. 

International Women’s Day 2024 Theme 

March 8 annually is celebrated as International Women’s Day in an attempt to recognise women in different fields of professions, extend gratitude for their everyday support, and give them a space to talk about their wants, opinions and accomplishments after years of discrimination and struggle for equality, which is still a long road. 

The theme for this year’s Women’s Day is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress" and "Inspire Inclusion" to work in the direction of a more inclusive and equitable future.