International Women’s Day 2023 quotes, poems, and Instagram captions

Time to celebrate the wonderful women in your life – today and every day (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Happy International Women’s Day 2023 (IWD)!

The day, which takes place today (March 8) in 2023, is devoted to celebrating women, honouring their achievements, and fighting for gender equality.

Want to share some words of female empowerment? Then look no further, as Metro.co.uk has created a round-up of feminist quotes, poems, and Instagram captions.

Post them online, or message them to the inspirational women in your life.

Feminist quotes for International Women’s Day

‘Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.’ – Maya Angelou

‘The only thing required to be a woman is to identify as one. Period. End of story.’ – Amanda Lovelace

‘Teach her that the idea of “gender roles” is absolute nonsense‘ – Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Picture: Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

‘Teach her that the idea of “gender roles” is absolute nonsense. Do not ever tell her that she should or should not do something because she is a girl. “Because you are a girl” is never reason for anything. Ever.’ – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

‘My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant to be your own person, be independent.’ – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

‘Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely — and the right to be heard.’ – Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking out on women’s rights (Picture: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for WomanLifeFreedom.today)

‘Women are leaders everywhere you look – from the CEO who runs a Fortune 500 company to the housewife who raises her children and heads her household. Our country was built by strong women, and we will continue to break down walls and defy stereotypes.’ – Nancy Pelosi

‘We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.’ – Emmeline Pankhurst

‘I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves.’ – Mary Shelley

‘Women are still treated as secondary issues. It is still far too easy and accepted for leaders to ignore uncomfortable truths… Women, we know, are the first to be affected by war, and the last to be taken into account when it ends.’ – Angelina Jolie

‘We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.’ – Emmeline Pankhurst (Picture: George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images)

‘But, of course, you might be asking yourself, ‘Am I a feminist? I might not be. I don’t know! I still don’t know what it is!’ So here is the quick way of working out if you’re a feminist. Put your hand in your pants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said “yes” to both, then congratulations! You’re a feminist.’ – Caitlin Moran

‘Here’s to strong women: May we know them. May we be them. May we raise them.’ – unknown

‘Some women fear the fire. Some women simply become it.’ – R.H. Sin

‘Every moment is an organising opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.’ – Dolores Huerta

‘Though she be but little she is fierce.’ – William Shakespeare

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 -1962) was passionate about civil rights (Picture: Keystone/Getty Images)

‘Well-behaved women rarely make history.’ – Eleanor Roosevelt

‘She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.’ – Rainbow Rowell

‘I am woman, I am fearless, I am sexy, I’m divine, I’m unbeatable, I’m creative. Honey, you can get in line.’ – Emmy Meli

‘The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.’ – Gloria Steinem

Empowered women empower women (Picture: Getty)

Poems to read on International Women’s Day

Her Kind by Anne Sexton

‘I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.
I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.
I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.’

Inspirational words from activist and writer Maya Angelou (Picture: Moses Robinson/WireImage)

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

‘You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.’

What Is The Greatest Lesson A Woman Should Learn by Rupi Kaur

Also try The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy, Differences Of Opinion by Wendy Cope, Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath, and A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde for more feminist poetry.

Instagram captions for International Women’s Day posts

Unapologetically be yourself

Here’s to strong women!

GRL PWR

Empowered women empower women

I am a woman. What’s your superpower?

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, too

You glow, girl!

Women’s Day, every day

March for women

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What to say, post, and send this International Women’s Day.