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)

A twelve foot long giant hamster has surprised Londoners along the South Bank, Millennium Bridge and Clapham Common on May 26, 2016. A 4-metre pedal-powered mechanical model hamster, which has been created in the likeness of Jaffa the hamster, who is listed as one of the 10 oddest discoveries made by Kwik Fit technicians in customers’ cars. (Photo by Joe Pepler/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Aeronautics and Space engineer at France's Compagnie Maritime d'Expertises, or Comex, Arnaud Prost (C) meets with a jogger as he tests on the ground the “Gandolfi 2” underwater training suit for spacewalk, on January 20, 2016 in the calanques region (rocky inlets) of Marseille. The underwater training suit “Gandolfi 2”, developed with the European Space Agency (ESA), is designed for training astronauts underwater to simulate space gravity for the astronaut's extravehicular activities (EVAs). (Photo by Boris Horvat/AFP Photo)

Makeup artists Kamila Wysocka and Alexis Jackson from Florida, point at another costumed person as they eat dinner in their zombie makeup at ComicCon in New York, on Oktober 10, 2013. (Photo by Carlo Allegri/Reuters)

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A woman poses on the flooded St. Mark's square during an acqua-alta (high-water) alert in Venice, on November 19, 2013. (Photo by Andrea Pattaro/AFP Photo)

P.S. All pictures, as usual, are presented in high resolution. To see Hi-Res images – just TWICE click on any picture. In other words, click small picture – opens the BIG picture. Click BIG picture – opens VERY BIG picture (if available; this principle works anywhere on the site AvaxNews).

A man takes photo of his colleague with a mobile phone on the burning oil tanker at the ship-breaking yard in Gaddani, Pakistan, November 2, 2016. Reports state that at least eighteen workers were killed and more than 100 were wounded in a blast at Gaddani ship breaking yard near Karachi on 01 November. Initial reports suggest the blast occurred when a gas cylinder exploded inside an oil tanker being broken up for scrap. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Participants ride horses, hold spears and wear historic armoured suits of the Middle Ages as they compete during the Saint George international knight tournament in Moscow, Russia, May 3, 2015. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

Tong Jieping, 44-year-old mentally disabled patient, is chained by his foot inside his room, in Qunxing village of Wangjiang county, Anhui province, China, July 14, 2015. Tong was diagnosed mentally ill when he was in his 20s. His parents, both in their 70s, could not afford the medical treatments so they had to lock him up in chains to prevent him from running away, according to Tong's family. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)