‘A Day Without a Woman’ strike aims to raise awareness
March 8, 2017
Organisers say women should not work on Wednesday, which is also International Women’s Day, to demonstrate their power.
Women in the US are being encouraged to participate in a strike intended to raise awareness over issues including economic inequality, reproductive rights, civil liberties and ending violence.
The one-day protest on Wednesday, labelled as A Day Without a Woman, is aimed at calling attention to economic bias faced by women.
Organisers called on women to take the day off of work or school, and said they should not to spend money in an attempt to highlight women’s role in society.
Among the eight organisers are: activist and author Angela Davis; Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, African American Studies professor at Princeton University; Tithi Bhattacharya, South Asian history professor at Purdue University; Ramsea Yousef Odeh, associate director of the Arab American Network; and Barbara Ransby, an author, historian and activist.
“Stand with women around the globe,” they said.
They said they were inspired by a recent “bodega strike” by Yemeni grocery-shop owners in New York who shut shop to protest against a travel order banning Yemenis from entering the US.
According to an official website, men could take part by “consider[ing] the ways that the women in your life care for and support you … daily, and imagin[ing] how you can provide that support to women in your life”, including taking on housework and bringing up the issue of equal pay at work.
