Women in agriculture in Iowa and around the world will be honored today at a special event held by the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics for “International Women’s Day.”

The event will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in 302 Catt Hall.

It is organized by the International Voices Committee and is free and open to the public.

This year’s theme, “Women in Agriculture,” will feature a variety of speakers on topics from women’s contributions in agriculture to how women have become role models in the field.

Dianne Bystrom, director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics, said the center was interested in celebrating the event in coordination with Women’s History Month.

“We started the coordination last year, but it’s been worldwide for a number of years,” she said.

Lynette Hornung, program assistant of the Catt Center, said Patty Judge, Iowa’s secretary of agriculture and the first woman to be elected to that position, is the special guest speaker for the event.

Bystrom said organizers decided to focus on a topic that “unites women worldwide and especially in Iowa.”

“We wanted to focus on women’s contributions internationally, not just the women in the United States,” she said. “We thought this was a nice theme because of Iowa State.”

Bystrom said she hopes people who attend the event will meet with “international women who go to school at Iowa State and live in Ames.”

She also said the day is typically a “family-centered event.”

“It’s a nice celebration with an educational focus,” she said.

Hornung said there already has been great interest in the event.

“We have about 80 to 90 people reserved already for the event,” she said.

Some of activities planned today for International Women’s Day include:

• Neelika Jayawardani, graduate student in creative writing from Sri Lanka, will talk about her experiences with rural women.

• “Bridging the Generations,” a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Iowa Master Farm Homemakers Guild, the Iowa Humanities Board and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

• A group of Kenyan women will perform traditional songs.

• ISU alumna Joan Moore will present highlights of the women honored in the traveling exhibit.

A soup and sandwich supper also will be provided.

Other sponsors of the event include the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, Women in Science and Engineering, Friends of International Women, the ISU Department of English, the YWCA of Ames/ISU, Minority Student Affairs, the Office of International Students and Scholars, OWL-WISE and the Multicultural Task Force.