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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Women's Strike - 8 March 2018

68 replies

thentherewerefour · 24/02/2018 16:59

On 8 March women across the world are going on strike. Below is the call to action for women in the UK to join the Women's Strike. We will refuse to work. We will be on the streets. We will shut things down and disrupt business as usual >> womenstrike.org.uk

Because the very idea of women going on strike from all the work (waged and unwaged) that we do is impossible - there will be collective food and childcare organised across London for the day.

The Women’s Strike will occur on International Women’s Day. We join a new international feminist movement, which has only grown in strength and determination since exploding onto the streets in recent years from Argentina to Poland, from Ireland to Mexico.

The Women’s Strike defies the idea that all women need to do is tell our stories and speak out. We are exhausted from telling the same story, over and over again. We need action.

To join the Women's Strike - come along to the following rallies and marches - kids welcome.

London: 1pm Russell Square
Birmingham: 12pm Victoria Square
Cardiff: 4.30pm Nye Bevan
Edinburgh: 6pm The Mound.

If you want to get involved in organising for the women’s strike or want to start your own strike assembly at your workplace or in your community, get in touch or come along to one of our events --> [email protected]

#WeStrike

For every woman who is sick to death of being sexually harassed and bullied at work.

For every woman who is hungry and unable to heat her house.

For every woman suffering because of benefit cuts or poverty wages.

For every woman who is expected to earn less than her male colleagues and then come home and start a second shift of cooking, cleaning and caring.

For every woman who is kept powerless by whore stigma.

For every woman of transgender experience who is subject to violence and whose womanhood is denied by the state, her doctor, her employers, and those around her.

For every woman who is told she is just going through a phase, that she’s too pretty to be a lesbian or too ugly to be straight and has endured homophobia, biophobia or queerphobia at home, at work and in the street.

For every woman who has worked herself to the bone to keep the national health and education systems functioning and yet has not received a pay rise in years.

For every woman who has suffered violence at the hands of partners, friends, colleagues or bosses and is not believed.

For every woman who faces violence at the hands of the state through immigration raids, mass incarceration and racist policing.

#westrike

Women’s work makes life possible. And for that work, we are rewarded with violence and exploitation in the streets, at work and at home. The recent #metoo campaign has exposed the daily reality of sexual harassment and violence that is at the centre of our labour exploitation. To add insult to injury, we’re told that our suffering is inevitable – even natural. We strike to reject that lie. We strike for a world where women can live free from violence and exploitation.

Nothing is external to the women’s movement.

We will strike and we will win.

#westrike to invent a time of our own where our desires and needs are the basis of a new form of life on earth.

Join us – we have a world to win.

The Women’s Strike UK is supported by:
Women’s Strike Assembly (London), Women’s Strike Assembly (Birmingham), Feminist Action Birmingham, Feminist Fightback, Precarious Workers Brigade, Plan C, The x:talk project, AntiUniversity, National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, United Voices of the World, Pluto Press, IWGB, Action for Trans Health, Dartmouth Films, Novara Media, Zed Books, Red Pepper, London Latinxs, Housmans, Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union, Sisters Uncut East London, Eastside Projects Birmingham, Grand Union Gallery Birmingham, Autonomic Cooperative, IWW, …and growing!

#womenstrike
#westrike
#impossiblestrike
#8M
#8march2018

OP posts:
Sittinonthefloor · 24/02/2018 22:19

I Hope this isn't real.

AstraiaLiberty · 24/02/2018 22:21

If the strike is for women, what is a woman?

For every woman of transgender experience who is subject to violence and whose womanhood is denied by the state, her doctor, her employers, and those around her.

Nobody should be the victim of violence for any reason. But what definition of 'woman' and womanhood are you using here?

TerfyMcTerface · 24/02/2018 22:22

I agree, Emyroo, the trans movement has a very strong scent of late capitalism about it.

thentherewerefour · 24/02/2018 22:22

'legalising the trade in women's bodies" -- [hits head on table] all labour / work uses bodies and brains. the idea that women sell their 'body' in sex work is bullshit. and smacks of ignorance. think about carers, nannies, therapists, massage therapists they call sell care, attention, affect, emotions, pleasure etc - women's work is overwhelmingly emotional / affective labour. and also wake up - so many women marry men (and have sex with them) for money, for status, to survive. instead of moralising and selling women out - why dont you actually listen to the women working in the industry. you dont actually disagree with them that much. you just need to stop with the ideological crap. everyone is trying to get by - in whatever way she can. we need solidarity. and we need work rights. in all industries.

OP posts:
AstraiaLiberty · 24/02/2018 22:25

ll labour / work uses bodies and brains. the idea that women sell their 'body' in sex work is bullshit. and smacks of ignorance. think about carers, nannies, therapists, massage therapists they call sell care, attention, affect, emotions, pleasure etc

So sex work is no different from other types of work? If I'm unemployed, the Jobcentre can insist I apply for jobs as a carer, nanny, etc even if they're not my preferred type of work. In your ideal world, should they also be able to insist I apply for sex work jobs or risk losing my benefits?

TheVastMajority · 24/02/2018 22:26

ANyone else get a feeling that this is a spot of transplaining?

"you just need to stop with the ideological crap" Yessir.

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 24/02/2018 22:30

we dont buy your arguments that criminalising women...

No one here has said they want to criminalise women

Stop making things up

hazeyjane · 24/02/2018 22:32

For every woman who is kept powerless by whore stigma.For every woman of transgender experience who is subject to violence and whose womanhood is denied by the state, her doctor, her employers, and those around her.Er no. It sounded ok until I got to these two, but I am not marching to enable men to pimp and traffic women unfettered, or for "woman" to be reduced to an identity rather than a description of a biological sex.

This.

TerfyMcTerface · 24/02/2018 22:32

I'm not sure we're really the audience you're looking for, OP. By and large, we tend to fall into the category of gender-critical women than transactivists like Ada want beaten up because we believe in heretical concepts like biology.

TeaEnjoyingRadientFeminist · 24/02/2018 22:32

we dont buy your arguments that criminalising women...

Difficult to 'buy' our arguments when you evidently don't care know what they actually are Hmm

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 24/02/2018 22:33

so many women marry men (and have sex with them) for money, for status

Mine was deffo lust...he was a gorgeous boy

Rufustherenegadereindeer1 · 24/02/2018 22:34

I hope you have a nice time though thenthere

Hope the weather is good for you

EmyRoo · 24/02/2018 22:34

But it’s not a race to the bottom - it is not sufficient argument to say women sell emotional and physical services, therefore why can’t they sell sexual services too?

The truly feminist argument would be to ask why emotional and domestic work is a) seen as female and b) undervalued? To ask why it is so hard for women with caring responsibilities or who are vulnerable to find a decent job and income. Not to say well, take off your clothes too, it’s what women do.

Female bodies are not a commodity, they should not be bought or sold - neither by a man who wants sex, nor by a man who wants to turn himself into a facsimile of a women. Both are using women or the idea of woman for oneself.

There is something very, very entitled about a man who can convince himself that women (real individual women or woman as an imagined category) are there to serve his needs, if only he can provide the money. Or in the case of becoming a woman, persuade the NHS to support this. No, women are people too, autonomous human beings who deserve to be treated with respect and not dehumanised into a commodity, however constructed.

What kind do double think is required to think we should go on strike (thus lose a day’s pay) to continue our own subordination?

OlennasWimple · 24/02/2018 22:45

Presumably this is the same Ada Cable who revelled in a woman being assaulted at Speakers Corner last year?

Yeah, I think I'll give this nasty event a wide berth

UpABitLate · 24/02/2018 22:58

Erm no one wants those selling sex to be prosecuted, stigmatised etc

I personally am bang up for plenty of stigma for the men who pay for sex though.

Job like any other? Why not posh for it to be legalised then rather than decriminalised? Oh yes because it would have to immediately stop in any form that would make the punters happy due to health and safety regs. The fact you don't want it legalised speaks volumes.

UpABitLate · 24/02/2018 22:59

Op is presumably AOK with Oxfam actions in Haiti.

And is allied with groups that encourage VAW.

Nice.

Hackedoffwoman · 24/02/2018 23:13

I'll give it a pass too. Sisters Uncut tried to stop women speaking at the Edinburgh WPUK meeting recently and tried to extort money out of the venue. The London branch supports the male being tried for assault of a 60yr old woman at Speakers Corner.

TitaniasCloset · 24/02/2018 23:29

How can anyone support that piece of shit? He was gunning for a fight.

GrockleBocs · 25/02/2018 00:54

Even if I bought into supporting the TRA element of this there's one insurmountable issue.
I will be at work that day and whilst I'm a union member, taking strike action that hasn't complied with legislation around industrial action would be grounds for disciplinary action.

QuentinSummers · 25/02/2018 07:06

Brilliant post emyroo

EmpressOfJurisfiction · 25/02/2018 07:14

Cis and gender are misogynist concepts. And as another woman who was at Speaker's Corner & had the dubious pleasure of listening to the protestors outside the venue that evening chanting BURN IT DOWN, I'll pass too.

Everything I've experienced of Sisters Uncut and Action for Trans Health has implied priority of trans-identifying males over women.

CoffeeOrSleep · 25/02/2018 07:44

Op - I could be wrong, but I think you might have failed to read the room correctly here...

Apart from anything else, a strike that doesn't meet industrial action rules/legislation is a very irresponsible thing to arrange. You are making your organisation look amateurish by even suggesting it.

exLtEveDallas · 25/02/2018 07:49

I can't go. I'm not a CIS-woman nor am
I a man, so it doesn't include me.

UpABitLate · 25/02/2018 10:07

I've always wondered about this. If I don't go to work I'll get in trouble won't I? How do I strike?

I know they did it in Iceland but they have a small population and different everything, really, here it would work if all women downed tools as I suppose they couldn't sack all of us but still.

TerfyMcTerface · 25/02/2018 10:11

My union has called a strike on that day anyway. So I could double-up on strike action, I guess. Except, like others on here I’m not a cis-woman or a trans woman, so can’t.