I’ve tried, really I have, but I just can’t register anything but exasperation and disgust at these instructions for the International Women’s Strike, aka, A Day Without a Woman, being planned for March 8th. This is ridiculous.
How to organize and participate in the International Women’s Strike on March 8
The strike is inclusive of all women and of all forms of work women do: women working in the formal labor market with or without labor rights, with or without unions and the legal right to strike, and with or without legal status; unemployed women; sex workers; women performing unpaid housework and care work; and students. For this reason, participation in the strike can take several forms:
1. Wherever it is possible, help the creation of a large women’s strike social coalition. Check for information about local organizing on our website: www.womenstrikeus.org. If there is no meeting yet for your town, help call one!
2. Organize or participate in local marches, demonstrations and walkouts.
3. Organize or participate in picket lines and direct actions of civil disobedience. This can also be organized in support of already existing campaigns or labor negotiations or controversies, especially if involving working women.
4. Organize a strike in your workplace. If you have a union, get your union on board; if you don’t, assess with your coworkers whether it is possible to organize a walkout without jeopardizing your job.
5. Organize a boycott of companies using sexism in their advertisements or approach to workers.
6. Organize a boycott of chosen local misogynists.
7. If you can, leave care and housework for the day and join your local demonstrations.
8. In case you can’t stop work, get your friends together who support the strike and wear or use the color red that day, for example, red clothes, or a red ribbon.
9. Strike from gender roles.
Please tell me I’m not the only person who did a double-take. I still can’t believe I’m reading that correctly. “Sex workers.” “All forms of work women do.” Apparently prostitution is women’s work. And in order to teach these misogynists a thing or two, “sex workers” should go on strike for a day and see how well those ungrateful jerks get along without them. Then come March 9th, it’s back to “work”?
For All Those “Unpaid Houseworkers”
I suppose I find myself included in their list under, “women performing unpaid housework and care work.” I guess taking care of my children at home would be “care work.” And I don’t receive a paycheck for keeping the house clean, so that must be unpaid housework.
I guess I’m supposed to declare the couch and the television mine for the day and refuse to lift a finger for my family. No cooking, no changing diapers (sorry, baby, but a strike is a strike. Change your own poopy diaper). Not a dish will I wash, nor a towel will I fold, nor a meal will I prepare for those selfish, blood-sucking leeches who take from me all day long without so much as kissing my feet or prostrating themselves in homage.
The indignity! I am Woman!
I’m sorry if that sounds a bit over the top, but this “worship me because I’m a woman” routine really grates on the nerves. It’s especially tone-deaf coming from a leftist mob that is willing to call a man in a dress a woman just because he says he’s a woman and got himself some breast implants. Yeah, you don’t get to lecture anyone on the value of women’s contributions to society when you can’t even correctly identify a woman.
Then There’s the So-Called “Sex Work”
Looking at #5 and #6 on the list up there, I have to ask: Isn’t “sex work” rather sexist? Misogynist, even? How exactly does prostitution display a deep respect for women? How does “sex work” combat misogyny?
When you boycott all those local misogynists, will that include the pimps and the strip joints? What do you think your one-day boycott is going to accomplish? You’re on record saying that sex is legitimate work for a woman. So how can you complain about those misogynists who take you at your word?
And by the way, a lot of those “sex workers” could be minor girls who “work” for folks who traffick them from place to place whether they like it or not, so you be sure to let them know they should go on strike for a day from their “work.” Trafficking, what am I saying? I meant business trips.
Who are all the other “local misogynists” in your crosshairs? Probably anyone who still believes that men and women, while equal in dignity, are indeed quite different by design, and that’s a good thing. Certainly anyone who refuses to think that equality for women requires championing the slaughter of babies in the womb. And certainly anyone who still thinks a woman is, by definition, biologically female.
Striking From “Gender Roles”
How exactly are we supposed to “strike from gender roles,” anyway? Why on earth should I need to strike from the roles uniquely afforded to me precisely because I am a woman? And what’s wrong with being a woman? I don’t want to be a man!
Also, does this striking from “gender roles” mean the “sex worker” gets to play the pimp for the day?
You cannot scream about the irreplaceable value of women while disdaining the very things only women can do, then legitimize the sexual exploitation of women. Women and girls for sale is not “work.”
Join Me in Striking This Strike
This is one woman who won’t be going on strike. The only thing I’m motivated to protest these days is insane leftist nonsense like this.
I refuse to take my cue from anyone who considers prostitution “a form of work women do,” yet has no idea whatsoever what it means to be a homemaker. All that “unpaid housework and care work.”
On the contrary, on March 8th and every day, I’ll be grateful for my vocation as a wife and mother; happy to keep my home clean, and my family fed and cared for. It’s my honor to serve my family. And when my husband comes home from a hard day at work, I’ll be especially grateful I didn’t have to live a day without a man — my man. I already know he’s grateful not to have to live a day without a woman — me. (For more from the author of “‘A Day Without a Woman’ Organizers Call Prostitution ‘Women’s Work'” please click HERE)
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