Wednesday March 8 marks International Women's Day, with festivals, concerts and exhibitions among the numerous events planned around the world to celebrate the achievements of women in society. The annual event has been held since the early 1900s and traditionally promotes a different theme each year, with this year's edition calling on people to #BeBoldForChange and push for a more gender-inclusive working world. Reuters photographers have been speaking with women in a range of professions around the world about their experiences of gender inequality. Here: Yolaina Chavez Talavera, 31, a firefighter, poses for a photograph in front of a truck at a fire station in Managua, Nicaragua, February 22, 2017. (Photo by Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters)

Shy'm poses as she arrives at NRJ Music Awards 2012 at Palais des Festivals on January 28, 2012 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Boys play with a drainage culvert used for flood control in Las Pinas, Metro Manila February 28, 2016. (Photo by Erik De Castro/Reuters)

People see in the new year at Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on January 1, 2024. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

American actress Drea de Matteo in Halloween costume in the last decade of October 2025, (Photo by Ashlee Krutzfeldt)

Brazilian revelers pose during Carnival celebrations along Ipanema beach on February 18, 2012 in Rio de Janiero, Brazil. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Musafir, a pet monkey, eats sweets on a pavement in Kolkata, India, June 9, 2016. (Photo by Rupak De Chowdhuri/Reuters)