On March 8, Prepare for a National Women’s Strike
On March 8, leading feminist scholars and activists, as well as the organizers of the Women’s March, are preparing a women’s strike. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Angela Davis, Linda Martín Alcoff, Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser, Barbara Ransby, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Rasmea Yousef Odeh detailed their plans, and asked women to “join us so Trump will see our power.”
They explained that this strike is designed to fight for working people and people of color. “While Trump’s blatant misogyny was the immediate trigger for the huge response on 21 January, the attack on women (and all working people) long predates his administration,” they wrote. “Women’s conditions of life, especially those of women of color and of working, unemployed and migrant women, have steadily deteriorated over the last 30 years, thanks to financialization and corporate globalization.
“Lean-in feminism and other variants of corporate feminism have failed the overwhelming majority of us, who do not have access to individual self-promotion and advancement and whose conditions of life can be improved only through policies that defend social reproduction, secure reproductive justice and guarantee labor rights,” they continued. “As we see it, the new wave of women’s mobilization must address all these concerns in a frontal way. It must be a feminism for the 99 percent.”
According to the op-ed, the Day Without a Women will consist of “a day of striking, marching, blocking roads, bridges, and squares, abstaining from domestic, care and sex work, boycotting, calling out misogynistic politicians and companies, and striking in educational institutions.”
Of course, due to financial constraints, it will be impossible for many women to strike. But for those who can, it will send a powerful message.