Commemorating International Women's Day (40 images)

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (R) and First Lady Michelle Obama (L) give an award to Pakistan's Ghulam Sughra during the International Women of Courage Awards ceremony at the State Department in Washington on March 8, 2011. UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg. | License Photo

A Chinese pharmacy worker prepares traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) packets of various herbs at the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in Beijing on July 23, 2009. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver) | License Photo

Afghan women cast their ballots for the parliamentary elections in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, September 18, 2010. Militants struck throughout the country trying to stop the voting. UPI/Hossein Fatemi | License Photo

Angelisa Young (R) and Sinjolya Townsend, the first gay couple to wed in the District of Columbia, kiss after they exchanged vows at their wedding ceremony at the Human Rights Campaign building in Washington on March 9, 2010. In December 2009, the DC Council approved a bill that would allow for same-sex marriages to be performed in the District. Today, same-sex couples were able to obtain marriage licenses they applied for last week and proceed with wedding ceremonies. UPI/Alexis C. Glenn | License Photo

Alice McNamara of Australia reacts when she crosses the finish line first from the Women's group after climbing the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building at the New York Road Runners 33rd Annual Empire State Building Run-Up at the Empire State Building in New York City on February 1, 2011. UPI/John Angelillo | License Photo

Female Iraqi Police recruits take aim at targets at a range near Mosul, Iraq, July 9, 2010. U.S. Soldiers with the 855th Military Police Company, 317th Military Police Battalion, 49th Military police Brigade, attached to 3rd Infantry Division and Iraqi Army soldiers helped train the recruits. UPI/Edward Reagan/US Army | License Photo

Hindu devotees get ready to take a holy bath in the Ganges River during Kumbha Mela festival in Haridwar, India on April 14, 2010. The pilgrimage takes place every three years, rotating amongst four different locations in India, thus, once every 12 years in each location. It lasts for 42 days attracting millions of people, and this year ends on April 28, 2010. Devotees believe that taking a bath in the river will wash their sins away so they begin life anew. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian | License Photo

Two women hug following a church service in Grand Goave, Haiti, January 22, 2010. The U.S. Navy sent in an assessment team to investigate damage from last week's 7.0 magnitude earthquake and the several aftershocks that followed. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

A Chinese girl does her homework outside her house in the ancient commercial city of Hongjiang, in the southern Hunan province, September 15, 2009. UPI/Stephen Shaver | License Photo

Lt. j.g. Lashanda Holmes stands in front of an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter at Air Station Los Angeles, California on August 17, 2010. Holmes, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, is the first female African-American helicopter pilot in the Coast Guard. UPI/Adam Eggers/U.S. Coast Guard | License Photo

Fifteen-year old triplet sisters pose for a photo prior to performing at the opening ceremony of the 3rd Beijing Twins Festival held in the Honglingjin Park in Beijing, on Monday, October 03, 2006. About 500 twin pairs took part in the festival. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver) | License Photo

A woman carrying a baby walks along the border fence on the Mexican side in the coastal town of Playas de Tijuana, Mexico, May 13, 2006. The border fence runs from the Gulf of Mexico in Texas ending in the Pacific Ocean. (UPI Photo/Earl S.Cryer) | License Photo

An injured Iranian woman is seen after Iranian riot police clash with supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi as they demonstrate against the results of the Iranian presidential election, which declared incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner, in Tehran, Iran on June 13, 2009. (UPI Photo) | License Photo

Family members continue to wait for the 33 miners trapped since August 5 at the San Jose mine to be rescued near Copiapo, Chile, on October 5, 2010. UPI/SEBASTIçN PADILLA | License Photo

Iranian women enjoy a day on the slopes at the Shemshak ski resort, in the Alborz mountains, north-east of Tehran, Iran on February 13, 2011. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian | License Photo

Voting materials are unloaded from a UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) helicopter in Tali Payam, a district inaccessible by road, in Southern Sudan’s Central Equatoria State on January 2, 2011. The independence referendum begins on January 9, 2011. UPI/Tim McKulka/UN | License Photo

Women smile together after watching the 134th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on May 16, 2009. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch) | License Photo

Zhuang women, the largest ethnic minority group in China, prepare to perform traditional dances in Daxin's Shangjia village, Guangxi province, on July 3, 2009. The degree of integration of ethnic minorities with China's national mainstream community varies widely from group to group. With some groups, such as the Tibetans and the Uyghurs, there is tense resentment against the majority Han. Other groups such as the Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, and Koreans are well integrated into the national community. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver) | License Photo

Arab Israeli women watch Israeli riot police shoot tear gas and stun grenades at rock throwing Arab Israelis during clashes after Israeli extreme rightists marched against the Islamic Movement in the Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, October 27, 2010. UPI/Debbie Hill | License Photo

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) appear together at a US Capitol reception for Jewish American Heritage Month May 19, 2009, sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and the Jewish Federations of North America. The three women were reunited Wednesday in Gifford's hospital room in Tucson. In his public remarks that night, President Obama told of Gifford's opening her eyes for the first time since her shooting Saturday, while her colleagues and the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi were all in her room. UPI/Ron Sachs/Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington and the Jewish Federations of North America | License Photo

A women walks past burning tires and a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as protesters, allied to Lebanon’s Hezbollah-led political opposition, burn tires, old cars and block streets in the capital Beirut on May 7, 2008. A general labor strike was called for by labor unions demanding pay increases. Sporadic gun-fire was heard throughout the capital as well as clashes between rival political groups. The airport was also closed. (UPI Photo) | License Photo

National Organization for Women (NOW) President Terry O'Neill arrives with some of 1,500 baby bottle nipples she gave to National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Co-Chair former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-WY, on Capitol Hill in Washington on September 29, 2010. NOW is calling for his ouster in their "Tits for an Ass campaign" after he likened social security to a "milk cow with 310 million tits." UPI/Roger L. Wollenberg | License Photo

Iranian women look at an album of wedding dresses in a shop in downtown Tehran, Iran on July 28, 2010. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian | License Photo

A women cares for a child at an orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 26, 2010. Haiti continues to suffer after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the country on January 12. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

A member of the League of Women Voters participates in a demonstration to protest the lack of voting rights for the citizens of Washington, D.C., on the 90th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing women the right to vote, in front of the White House in Washington on August 26, 2010. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

American nuns opposed to the papal ban on priesthood stand in silent protest during a speech by Pope John Paul II. | License Photo

Hindu worshipers arrive to practice their religion during the Kumbha Mela festival in Haridwar, India on April 13, 2010. The pilgrimage takes place every three years, rotating amongst four different locations in India, thus, once every 12 years in each location. It lasts for 42 days attracting millions of people, and this year ends on April 28, 2010. Devotees believe that taking a bath in the river will wash their sins away so they begin life anew. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian | License Photo

Residents protest outside the headquarters of Enersis, a privately-owned multinational electric power corporation that provides electrical power in Chile, in Quilicura, near Santiago, on March 4, 2010. Residents claim the company has not responded to replace power services in the municipality since the devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake on February 27. UPI/Pedro Cerda | License Photo

A lone woman keeps cover under her umbrella in the stands of one of Roland Garros' main tennis courts as continued downpours interrupted the matches on the third day of the French Open tennis tournament in Paris, May 27, 2008. (UPI Photo/Eco Clement) | License Photo

Demonstrators carry signs while marching on the Memorial Bridge into Washington from Arlington, VA on International Women's Day March 8, 2010. The "Join Me on the Bridge" march and rally was held to raise awareness of struggles women world-wide face and to support the Enough Project helping women in the Congo. UPI/Madeline Marshall | License Photo

Commander Eileen Collins waves to spectators after landing at Kennedy Space.Center's Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) aboard a T-38 jet aircraft, July 16, 1999 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. She and other crew members Pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby and Mission Specialists Steven A. Hawley (Ph.D.), Catherine G. "Cady" Coleman (Ph.D.) and Michel Tognini of France, with the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), are arriving for pre-launch activities. Collins is the first woman to serve as mission commander. This is her third Shuttle flight, set for July 20. The primary mission of STS-93 is the release of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which.will allow scientists from around the world to study some of the most distant, powerful and dynamic objects in the universe. | License Photo

A woman walks out from under a giant tarpaulin set up to shelter badly housed people in Paris, November 27, 2007. Dozens of badly housed people have been squatting on "rue de la Banque" in the center of the French capital in a bid to press the government to find solutions to house poor families who can no longer afford to rent a home following a boom in real estate prices these past years. (UPI Photo/Eco Clement) | License Photo

Hindu devotees practice their rituals on the banks of the Ganges River during the Kumbha Mela festival in Haridwar, India on April 14, 2010. The pilgrimage takes place every three years, rotating amongst four different locations in India, thus, once every 12 years in each location. It lasts for 42 days attracting millions of people, and this year ends on April 28, 2010. Devotees believe that taking a bath in the river will wash their sins away so they begin life anew. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian | License Photo

Iranian women chant slogan under a picture of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran on June 19, 2009. Khamenei warned protesters of a crackdown and said the presidential elections were fair. UPI/Hossein Fatemi | License Photo

Women stop to look at rubble on an earthquake damaged street in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 25, 2010. Haiti continues to suffer after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the country on January 12. UPI/Kevin Dietsch | License Photo

U.S. President elect Barack Obama (L) walks with Gulf War Veteran Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in combat, prior to placing a wreath on the Bronze Soldiers Memorial in honor of Veterans Day in Chicago on November 11, 2008. (UPI Photo/Tannen Maury/Pool) | License Photo

An Iranian woman carries her child as she attends a ceremony to mourn the death of Islam's prophet Mohammed in Qazvin province, 91 Miles (165 Km) west of Tehran, Iran on March 7, 2008. (UPI Photo/Mohammad Kheirkhah) | License Photo

Wazhma Frogh, of Afghanistan, attends a ceremony where she will be awarded an International Women of Courage Award at the State Department in Washington on March 11, 2009. The award recognizes women who fight for human rights and social justice worldwide. (UPI Photo/Alexis C. Glenn) | License Photo

Suaad Abbas Salman Allami, of Iraq, attends a ceremony where she will be awarded an International Women of Courage Award at the State Department in Washington on March 11, 2009. The award recognizes women who fight for human rights and social justice worldwide. (UPI Photo/Alexis C. Glenn) | License Photo

Demonstrators show their support of the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act at a rally held by female Democratic members of Congress in Washington on July 17, 2008. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed in the House last year, and the rally called on the Senate to do the same. (UPI Photo/Jack Hohman) | License Photo