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)

Giant pandas are playing and foraging inside the Shenshuping base of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong National Nature Reserve on November 3, 2021 in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province of China. (Photo by An Yuan/China News Service via Getty Images)

Divers wearing mermaid costumes take part in the first Chinese Mermaid Performance Contest at Atlantis resort on December 21, 2021 in Sanya, Hainan Province of China. (Photo by Luo Yunfei/China News Service via Getty Images)

Aerial view of a farmer feeding ducks at a farm on November 6, 2020 in Sihong County, Jiangsu Province of China. (Photo by Zhang Lianhua/VCG via Getty Images)

Elephants cool off at a zoo in Karachi, Pakistan, 31 March 2021. Caretakers at Karachi's zoo were working to keep animals cool during a heatwave affecting southern Pakistan. (Photo by Shahzaib Akber/EPA/EFE)

“The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is a nine-day Taoist celebration beginning on the eve of 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, which is observed primarily in Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and also the Riau Islands. In Thailand, this festival is called Tesagan Gin Je, the Vegetarian Festival. It is celebrated throughout the entire country, but the festivities are at their height in Phuket, where about 35% of the population is Chinese. It attracts crowds of spectators because of many of the unusual religious rituals that are performed”. – Wikipedia. Photo: A devotee gest pierced at the Bang Neow shrine in Phuket. (Photo by Paula Bronstein)

An Armenian serviceman fires a cannon towards Azerbaijan positions in the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, Tuesday, September 29, 2020. (Photo by Sipan Gyulumyan/Armenian Defense Ministry Press Service/PAN Photo via AP Photo)

A woman uses protection masks to cover her face as protestors from the Million Mask March and anti lockdown protesters demonstrate, amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in London, Britain on November 5, 2020. (Photo by Henry Nicholls/Reuters)