Tomorrow will see the first ever Transnational Women’s strike. In over 30 countries around the world women will refuse waged and reproductive work, walkout, demonstrate, blockade, wear black and more. This important moment comes on the back of women’s strikes in Argentina, Spain, Poland and Ireland and large feminist mobilisations against authoritarian nationalism and its revitalised patriarchal offensive.
This development drives forwards some themes that Plan C has been interested in for years: the tendency towards the social strike, the weaponization of social reproduction, and the role of a reinvigorated feminism in revolutionary movements.
So what is going on? How are participants thinking about their strike? Where could we go from here? We’ve put together a collection of texts from the movement in an attempt to make answering these questions a little easier.
If you want to get involved, there is an (unfortunately incomplete) tool to find an action in your city (UK). Plan C Thames Valley are organising a walkout at Royal Holloway University and Plan C Birmingham are organising a lunchtime demonstration and evening pubic meeting. Local groups elsewhere will be joining existing mobilisations.
Call Outs
If Our Lives Have No Value, Then We Strike!
This statement by women involved in the Transnational Social Strike platform, now translated into 6 languages, was written after a session at the assembly on 14th February in London. The audio from the workshop can be found here.
Mobilisation video from the Swedish participants in the Transnational Social Strike Platform, Allt at Alla.
We Won’t Wait. Strike for Repeal
Mobilisation Video from Strike 4 Repeal, the Irish campaign for a referendum on access to abortion.
Beyond Lean-In: For a Feminism of the 99% and a Militant International Strike on March 8
An open letter from U.S. academics and organisers arguing for the necessary development of the January 21st Women’s March into the March 8th Women’s Strike.
The Global Women’s Strike Wave
The Impossibility of the International Women’s Strike is Exactly Why It’s So Necessary
An article by Plan C’s Camille Barbagallo on the radical potentials of striking over reproductive labour, and the demands for a reorganisation of reproduction that could emerge as a result.
We are Many and Growing at a Global Level
A Plan C interview with an Irish organiser for Strike 4 Repeal.
Polish Women’s Strike: Interview with a Participant
A Plan C interview with a Polish organiser for the women’s strike.
How Was the March 8 International Women’s Strike Woven Together?
An article by the Argentinian ‘Nina Una Menos’ (‘Not One More’) collective explaining some of the process and context behind the development of their strike.
An article by Liz Mason-Deese theorising what it means to strike over questions of reproduction and against violence – and how women can find each other in the space created by the strike.
An interview with Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, a U.S strike organiser.
Before and Beyond March 8th
Women and Communal Strikes in the Crisis of 1917-1922
This chapter by Temma Kaplan shows the historical predecessors of March 8th by examining patterns of collective women’s action and strike in early 20th century movements.
A 1974 speech by Italian feminist Mariarosa Dalla Costa on the demand for wages for housework, and the gender-blindness of the conventional general strike.
