Got plans for Monday, March 8? No? Well, March 8 is International Women’s Day, and I’m here with a few ways for you to mark the occasion.

First, a little background. In 1909, the Socialist Party of America designated February 28 as National Woman’s Day to honor the women who had protested inadequate working conditions in the garment district of New York City. A year later, Socialists meeting in Copenhagen voted to hold a worldwide version of the event to raise awareness of women’s rights and to gain support for universal suffrage. The event has expanded beyond its socialist roots, and the United Nations (U.N.) designated March 8 as International Women’s Day in 1975. In some countries, the day is celebrated similarly to the way we observe Valentine’s Day in the U.S. — men buy women flowers or show them some form of appreciation. But in other countries, the day is a time to make a political statement about gender equality and women’s rights.

Each year, the U.N. assigns a different theme to International Women’s Day; this year’s theme is “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.” If you’re a blogger that’s inspired by that theme, then you may be interested in an opportunity presented by the Gender Across Borders blog. Gender Across Borders is asking bloggers to write about what equal rights really means or what moments, movements or people have helped achieve equal rights. If you’d like to participate, you can get the details and a blogger badge from Gender Across Borders.

To mark the day, Women for Women International is hosting an event called “Join Me on the Bridge” to raise awareness of the plight of women in Congo and Rwanda. The main events will take place on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the Millennium Bridge in London — symbolizing the bridges that we can all build toward peace and global development — but local events have also been organized everywhere from  Australia and India to Milwaukee and Anchorage.

If you’re free tonight, you can get a head start on celebration by attending “Half the Sky,” a live event based on the book by the same name written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. The event will be held in more than 400 movie theaters in the U.S. and Canada, and proceeds will benefit CARE, which works with women in the developing world. If you want to learn more about CARE’s work, head on over to iTunes. Cristen and I did a two-parter of Stuff Mom Never Told You (part one, part two) on this great organization last year.

Any local events you want to spread the word about? Let us know in the comments!