For years, International Womens Day has gone largely unnoticed or was depoliticized. Most people no longer know that its roots lie in the struggle of women garment workers in the United States " or that a mobilization of women in Russia to oppose World War I in 1917 was the spark for an uprising that led to the overthrow of the Tsar and set off the Russian Revolution.
But this International Working Womens Day was decidedly different. Thousands showed up to rally, march, demonstrate at Day Without a Woman gatherings across New York City, on March 8, part of a nation-wide one-day strike to show womens impact on the American economy. The strike was also a call to organize resistance not just against Trump and his misogynist policies, but also against the conditions that produced Trump, namely the decades-long economic inequality, racial and sexual violence, and imperial policies abroad.
Spotlights were shone on immigrant rights and the call was loud and magnanimous to welcome those forced by the various necessities of human mobility to cross borders. Embraces were effusive, for and enveloped the issues of LGBTQIA sisters and brothers and similarly heartfelt support was extended to the mothers whose loved ones were murdered by police; and the protectors of indigenous lands and water rights received hardy cheers.
This March 8 strike put radical politics at the center of the resistance. Rather than merely espousing shattering glass ceilings that impede womens ascent into career or electoral prominence the strikers located the oppression of women in capitalism and the free market.
produced by Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program - knash@igc.org
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