The action planned for International Women’s Day is a powerful weapon. Women withdrawing their labour have inspired Greek drama and changed the face of Icelandic politics There is a plan to mark this International Women’s Day with a global strike; women everywhere expressing their solidarity with one another by withdrawing their labour. There is a good chance that by the time you read this, you will already be at work. There is another good chance that, if you are committed to global women’s solidarity, the work you do is already more valuable to women than it is to the patriarchy, and, by withdrawing it, you are not even cutting off your nose to spite your face, you are cutting off your nose to spite someone else’s face. And then there’s the pitfall common to all strike action: that you redistribute oppression, if only in the form of inconvenience, to people who were previously on your side, while leaving unaffected the people you truly want to notice. Specific to women-only action is the question, knocking about since the worldwide Women’s Marches in January, over whether or not this is a good time to be excluding men, just as a united front of everybody with a shared view of humanity is most important. Janelle Brown, from the activist group Sisters Uncut, reminds us that the practical benefits of women-only spaces can outweigh the theoretical downsides: “Just not having men in the room makes decision-making much quicker. When there’s no interrupting – no bravado, essentially – you get shit done.” Continue reading...
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